OP 




Class. 
Book. 



THE ANCIENT CITY 

Discovery of the City that Cain Built and 
Discovery of the Most Ancient Site 

of the City of Thebes and the 
Lost Europa, the Princess of Tyre ; 



and 



The Origin of the Swiss Lake Dwellings 



By J. M. WOOLSEY 

Member of the Folk Lore Society of London, and the 
American Folk Lore Society 

AUTHOR OF 

The Original Garden of Eden Discovered at Last, 
and the Final Solution of the Mystery of the 
Woman, the Tree, and the Serpent 

For which the Author won a Pri^e of 
Ten Thousand Dollars 



It has been Pronounced the Greatest Book of the Century 



ALSO THE AUTHOR OF 

The Discovery of Noah's Ark : Final and Decisive 

All Rights Reserved 

1911 



pyfc 



Copyrighted, 1911 

BY 

J. M. WOOLSEY 






ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



INDEX 

PART I.— THE MOON MARSH. 

PAGE 

Chapter I. — The Cradle and the Grave 9 

II. — The Slough of Despond and the Quag- 
mire of Hell 11 

III. — Marsh Building on the Moon and Emigra- 
tion Legends 15 

The Story of the Spendthrift 15 

Legend of Cartmel Church and Aztec 

Emigration '. . . . 17 

IV.— The Marsh Reed— The New Moon Rod 
as the Sacred Reed — The Winter 
Omen 18 

PART II.— THE ANCIENT CITY. 

Chapter I.— The Wall Builders 23 

II. — Founding of the City of Thebes and Dis- 
covery of the Lost Europa — The Prin- 
cess of Tyre 27 

III. — The Founding of Jerusalem, the City of 

Peace — Stories from the Rabbis 30 

IV. — Founding of the City of Rome 31 

V. — The Island City and the City of the Sand- 

Bar 32 

VI.— The Illusory City 35 

VII. — Solomon's Temple 36 

VIII. — Diana's Temple — Diana's Temple at 

Ephesus 41 

IX. — Stone Henge 43 

X. — Origin of the Swiss Lake Dwellings .... 44 



INDEX 

PART III.— FOUNDATION SACRIFICE. 

PAGE 

Chapter I. — Foundation Sacrifice 51 

II. — Foundation Sacrifice 52 

III.— The City Walls 54 

IV. — The Building Sacrifice 56 

V. — Sacrifice Propitiatory 59 

VI. — Christian Sacrifice 60 

VII. — Jewish Sacrifice 63 

VIII. — Remarks on Sacrifice 63 



PART IV.— THE SACRED ISLAND. 

Chapter I. — The Sacred Island 66 

II. — The Sacred Island 68 

III. — Island of Atlantis — Isles of the Genii — Is- 
land of St. Brandon and the Seven 

Cities, and Enchanted Islands 70 

IV. — Story of Alcmaeon, Latona and Delos . . 72 
V. — The Azure Islands, or The Wandering 

Rocks 15 

VI. — Birth and Nuptial Islands — Birth Island . 11 

Nuptial Island 79 

VII. — Isle of the Oak Tree — A Finnish Tale . . 79 
VIII. — The Island of Heligoland and the Frisian 

Law 81 

IX.— Battle Island 82 

X. — The Isle of the Hereafter; or, The Island 

of Souls 83 

XI. — The Island of Eden 86 



INDEX 

PART V.— THE CULTURE HERO AND 
ORIGINAL CIVILIZATION. 

PAGE 

Chapter I. — Talisman, Charm-Protector, and Totem 

Pole 88 

II. — Auguries — The Pillar and Guide of the 
Exodus, Signs, and Portents Observed in 
Emigration, and the Founding of Cities 91 

Founding of Longa Alba 93 

Auguries 94 

III. — Descent from the Gods 96 

IV. — Eponymous Heroes 97 

V. — Mountain Revelation ; or, The Wise Man 

of the Mountain . 98 

VI. — Guide and Leader of Civilization 1 02 

The Aztec Emigration 1 05 

VII. — The Culture Hero and Origin of Civiliza- 
tion 106 

VIII. — Culture Hero — Agni, Prometheus, and 

the Firestick Ill 

IX. — Oannes, The Wisdom Fish God of Baby- 
lon 113 

X. — Manibozho, or Michabo, the Culture 
Hero, and the "Great Hare" of the Al- 

gonquins 115 

XI. — Sume, the Culture Hero of Brazil 116 

XII. — Leaders and Culture Heroes of Northern 

Europe 117 

Wali or Skeaf, the Foundling Ancestor of 
the Angles and Danes 118 

PART VI.— COSMOGONY WORLD BUILDING. 

Cosmogony World Building and The Book of Beginnings 1 1 9 
Egg Theory 1 30 



PART FIRST. 

THE MOON MARSH 
THE CRADLE AND THE GRAVE. 

Chapter I. 

In ancient belief creation and all life began upon the reedy 
shore of the moon — the moon marsh. 

The Babylonian Eden was planted in the marsh in imi- 
tation of that little white island ring planted upon the shore 
of the moon sea. 

In Japan legend the Creator Asi (the reed) arose from 
the marsh at the beginning and laid the foundation of the 
world in the deep. 

Athene was the daughter of Poseidon and the Tritonian 
marsh. (Pausanias: Description of Greece, B. 1, Ch. 14.) 
Which means the new moon born on the shore of the moon 
sea or moon marsh. 

According to Pindar man was born in the Cephisian marsh ; 
similar legends exist among the Libyans. 

At the birth of Kuvad, the first of the Kushite kings of 
the Zend, he was found in the reeds of the Lake Kashava, 
which is the modern Zarah. 

In the Popol Vuh of Quiche tradition, the first creation 
of man took place at Paxil or Cayala — "Land of divided or 
stagnant waters" (which is the moon marsh). (Bancroft: 
Pacific Coast Indians, Vol. 2, pp. 716-7.) 



io THE ANCIENT CITY 

Moses was born there in that reedy marsh; Apollo was 
born there in that little island of the moon marsh, for which 
Delos is substituted to gratify the vanity of the Greeks. 

"He sent from above, he took me, he drew me out of 
many waters." (Psalms 18:16.) 

Isis, the Egyptian Goddess, fled from the snares of her 
pursuer Typhon to the island of Chebi (the Greek Chemmis). 
There she brought forth her son Horus, surnamed Nub "the 
Golden," in the marshes of Buto in Lower Egypt. 

That "berry child" born of Mary the Finland virgin, who 
fled from her and was found among the reeds and rushes. 
(Kalevala, Rune 50.) 

According to Pausanias, Dionysus descended to Hades to 
bring up Semele by the way of the Alcyonian marsh, and that 
it was at a reed bed where Narcissus beheld his own image 
and died. 

In the 157th chapter of the Book of the Dead, the chapter 
reads: "Isis has come, she has gone round about the towns; 
she has sought out the hidden places of Horus in his coming 
out from the swamp of papyrus reeds. He has stood against 
evil, he has come into the divine boat; he has commanded the 
princes of the world; he has made a great fight." 

That marsh in winter was haunted by water demons and 
evil spirits. It was there Odysseus encountered the swine herd 
upon his return home, for there the swine wallowed in the 
moon marsh. 

There dwelt the fen wolf, and were wolf and the marsb 
wolf Grendel in the epic of Beowulf. 

It was there Sigurd dug the pit and slew the serpent Fafnir. 

They were the slime pits of Sodom, where Sodom was 
swallowed up and only the little island of Zoar left, which is 
the island of the new moon on which is built the new city of 
Spring, for the lunar scene is brought down to the marshes of 
Sodom. 



THE ANCIENT CITY n 

"A most strange creature will come, 
From the sea marsh of Rhianedd, 
As a punishment of iniquity on Maelgwn Gwynedd, 
His hair and his teeth and his eyes being as gold." 
It is the wild boar coming from the marsh at midsummer to 
root up the summer garden — it is the first ring of the mid- 
summer moon. (Guest's Mabinogion, p. 503.) 



THE SLOUGH OF DESPOND AND THE 
QUAGMIRE OF HELL. 

Chapter II. 

In the ancient Welsh song "The Pacification of Lludd" 
(Davies' Mythology of the British Druids) we read: "The 
King is not ensnared as inexpert; he directs with his speech 
that the quadrangular swamp should be set in order by way- 
faring torches against the arrogant leader in whose presence 
there was a spreading flame." 

That quadrangular inclosure is the square garden, the 
sacred garden, representing the square made by connecting the 
four cardinal points of the compass; that garden of Eden 
planted upon the moon and represented upon the earth as a 
sacred islet contiguous to the shore of a chosen bay or lake. 

At the celebration of the May festival by the British Druids, 
the moon ark was represented as coming from her long sea 
voyage, or again as a sunken ship raised, and is about to enter 
the harbor of the new moon bay when was chanted: 

"A holy sanctuary there is exalting itself on high; the small 
reeds with joined points declare its praise; fair in its borders 
the first points shoot forth." 

It is the arrival of the new moon of Spring and the ark is 
called the avanc or beaver, for like the beaver it was amphi- 



12 THE ANCIENT CITY 

bious and dwells part of the time below and part of the time 
above the waters. 

At this festival the ark of the god Hu was drawn out of 
the swamp or marsh by the sacred bulls. It was the same 
ark of the Israelites drawn over by cows from the land of 
the Philistines, its place of winter bondage. It is the ark of 
Noah and the ark of Jason. In the Druidical account the 
car is drawn out of the marsh by bulls. 

Songs of the British Bards of the Fifth and Sixth Century 
from Davies' Mythology of the British Druids. Song No. 14 
Appendix. The scene is at the celebration of the Spring festi- 
val when the Easter moon or first new moon of Spring was 
pulled up from the marsh or shallow water on the shore by 
oxen in mimic representation. 

"In the presence of the blessed ones before the great 
assembly, before the occupiers of the holm where the house 
was recovered from the swamp surrounded with crooked horns 
and crooked swords in honor of the mighty king of the plains." 

It was the house of the beaver or avanc drawn up on a 

little islet called a holm, for the moon was likened to an avanc 

or amphibious beaver half the time submerged or in the water. 

When the train was moving in circular dance and singing 

in cadence with garlands upon their brows. 

Loud was the clattering of shields, and frantic was the 
mirth round the ancient caldron, gashing their thighs, red with 
the blood of sacrifice; for the serpent's egg had been "snatched" 
over the ford that "involved ball resplendent with rays," which 
is the first ring of the Spring moon, the froth of the moon ser- 
pents. 

It was there in the pit of conflict the raven in his wrath 
pierced the bull — this bull represented the god. 

The sun and moon, or summer and winter, were represented 
as two bulls. 



THE ANCIENT CITY 13 

In the after summer the sun bull as a Sigurd the Volsung, 
is slain in the west. And at the end of winter the moon bull is 
slain in the eastern pit of conflict as Gunnar the Niblung — they 
are the two brothers — Sun and Moon. 

Holm is an islet in the river or by the shore; the serpent's 
egg is the first new moon of Spring likened to froth produced 
by the friction of the black ball of the moon serpents; the same 
as the amrita produced by the churning of the moon waters 
by the Hindu serpent Vasuki, to produce the "immortal" water 
of life or Soma — the same Phallic blood of the wounded Saturn 
which produced Venus, the new moon ring. 

The above froth of the serpent's spittle is the same spittle 
of the Norse gods and demons, who all spat in a jar and pro- 
duced the elixir of wisdom personified as the god Kvaser. 

In this moon marsh of the British Druids, stands the tall 
priest crane, which is the new moon, the priest of the moon 
altar, who is referred to in the Eddas. He is the Melchizedek 
or priest king who came out to meet Abraham on his return 
from the wars; he is the high priest of the moon altar, the first 
new moon of Spring after the winter war. 

In New Zealand he is called Maui "the swamp hen," 
"long-legged one" and "Lord of the marsh." (Clark's Maori 
Tales, p. 54.) 

And this is no corruption of the patriarchal religion at all, 
as both are different stages of growth and variation of the old 
lunar and sepent worship. 

It was the same swamp filled with serpents that Siegfried 
burned and tried out a lake of fat, which is the little lake of 
the new moon on one rim of the black moon forest. 

The same stymphalian marsh where Hercules shot the 
stymphalian birds, and the same Lernaen marsh where Her- 
cules killed the Hydra, the water beast that abode in the marsh, 
and came out on the land and killed cattle and ravaged the 
country; it had nine heads, and one of them immortal, and as 



i 4 THE ANCIENT CITY 

fast as one head was crushed, there grew two in its place. It 
is the head of the moon crushed, and the light or fire put out; 
then there springs up a new moon with two forks or heads, and 
one head is immortal — that immortal ring that can never die, 
but phoenix-like rises from the moon ashes and appears as the 
new moon ring on the bed of the cold slacked ashes. 

The little sacred island of Avallen or apple orchard at 
Somerset, England, where stood the Tor of Glastonbury, was 
originally in a marsh which has since been drained. 

It was an ancient seat of worship in prehistoric times, 
and in the neighboring banks are found the remains of lake 
dwellings; it was called by the old Britons "the island of 
apples" and the "Glassy Island." Celtic romance gathered 
around the old religious site, and there at Glastonbury Arthur 
was buried, and by tradition; there Joseph of Arimathea 
planted his staff made from Christ's crown of thorns which grew 
two trunks from a single root — which are the two prongs of the 
new moon. 

In the British Mythology of Davies: Hell was a quagmire, 
and it was from this mire the avanc or sacred ark of the Britons 
was drawn by oxen, as the ark of Israel was drawn by cows 
every Spring. 

"And lest I sink adhesive to the quagmire of that multitude 
which peoples the depths of hell, I will tremble before the cover- 
ing stone with the sovereign of boundless dominion." 

The black stone of the moon lay over the depths of the 
underworld as a trap door ; when one lifted that they entered the 
lower world and the dead were placed in a stone chest and a 
flat stone placed over them; they are still to be seen in the 
churchyards of a century ago; they are the covering stones of 
vaults. 

In that marsh was the covering stone over the quagmire 
of Hell. (Davies' Mythology of British Druids, p. 571.) 

In the Babylonian penitential Psalms, we find: "Lord, 



THE ANCIENT CITY 15 

cast not down thy servant; He sinks in the waters of the swamp; 
Grasp thou his hand." 

That may be the man of the Aztec exodus seen in a boat 
on the marsh with hands lifted up as in supplication. 



MARSH BUILDING ON THE MOON AND 
EMIGRATION LEGENDS. 

Chapter III. 

"Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters. 
Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over, that they 
turn not again to cover the earth." (Psalms: Ch. IV:3-9.) 

(The beams are the pillars of the moon that restrain the 
waters and protect the earth from the flood.) 

The oldest Athenian sanctuary of Dionysus stood in the 
marsh of Dimnai. (Anthon and Ency. Brit.) 

Dodona, the most ancient shrine of the Greeks, was sur- 
rounded by marshes and produced oracles by the vibrations 
of a caldron when struck with a whip, the lash of which con- 
sisted of three chains; the walls were composed of many 
caldrons. 

THE STORY OF THE SPENDTHRIFT. 

As the spendthrift entered the gate of a city, a proclama- 
tion was being made that any one who would build a palace 
of gold with golden stairs in the middle of the sea in the course 
of one night, should have half the kingdom and the king's 
daughter in marriage, but failure would be punished with 
death. (Wide Awake Stories, p. 199.) 

It is the shining palace of the new moon built in the black 
waters of the moon sea in one night, which is the first night 
of the new moon. 



16 THE ANCIENT CITY 

About 1325 the Aztecs settled on the marshy shore of 
the west side of the Lake of Mexico on the swamp Tlalcoco- 
mocco; here they came upon a stone upon which, according 
to tradition, a certain prince named Copil had been sacrificed 
by a Mexican priest forty years before, and from this stone 
had sprung a nopal tree. And at the time the advance guard 
of the Mexican settlers arrived in sight of the tree, an eagle was 
seen sitting in the top holding a serpent in his beak — which is the 
dark moon holding the new moon ring or serpent in his mouth. 

A priest then divinely inspired dived into the pool near 
the stone and there had an interview with the god of the waters, 
who allowed the people to settle upon the spot by paying a 
yearly tax. 

A priest had been previously told in a dream to search for 
a nopal tree growing out of a stone in the lake with an eagle 
in the top holding a serpent in his mouth, and there the City 
of Mexico was founded, and in the centre of a square having 
four sides and where four roads met at right angles, for in the 
ancient time cities were built around the temple, and the priest- 
hood took auguries and omens and went before the people 
and marked out the site of the city according to astronomical 
observations, and the settlement was built around a central in- 
closure which was reserved for the seat of the gods. 

In Lord Kingsboro's Antiquities of Mexico (Vol. 4) is 
shown a symbolical representation of the Mexican migration 
from Aztlan. It is a marshy lake, and from the water rises 
up a tree, and upon the tree stands a dove delivering tidings 
to a band of pilgrims standing fronting in file. A hand and 
part of a forearm stretches up from the water holding a plant. 
A bird's head also is seen emerging and two human heads, 
and nearby is a canoe afloat which contains a naked person 
lying upon his back, with arms stretched upward as if in suppli- 
cation. 



THE ANCIENT CITY 17 

LEGEND OF CARTMEL CHURCH AND AZTEC 
EMIGRATION. 

(See Lancashire Folk-Lore by Hartland for Legend of 
Cartmel Church.) 

"Six hundred years ago some monks came over to Lan- 
cashire from another country, and finding all this part of the 
kingdom covered with wood resolved to build a monastery 
in some part of Cartmel Forest ; and in their rambles they found 
a hill of prospect and prepared to build a church on the summit, 
and a voice cried out upon the air and forbade them to build 
upon the summit, but to choose a valley between two rivers, 
where the one runs north and the other south. And after 
long search they came upon the two rivers and placed the 
church midway between the two streams, upon a little island 
of hard ground in the midst of a morass, which they dedicated 
to St. Mary, and then built a small chapel on the hill of the 
voice which they dedicated to St. Bernard. 

The new moon ring is the voice that cried out, and the 
church is the brown hall of the moon built in the hollow between 
its forks or two golden streams. 

And mind, a temple was built on an island in the Tiber, 
dedicated to the sacred serpent of Epidaurus, where the reptile 
had disappeared among the reeds. (See Aesculapius in An- 
trum's Dictionary.) 

In the Chichimec period there occurred a division of the 
Aztecs into Mexicans and Tlatelulcas brought about by a 
quarrel between priests and nobles, and the nobles were driven 
out and their new location was miracuously pointed out by 
a whirlwind which directed them to a sandy point among 
the reeds of the lake where they found a shield, an arrow, and 
a coiled serpent, which was considered a most favorable augury, 
and a settlement was obtained from the Tepanec king on the 



i8 THE ANCIENT CITY 

condition of a yearly tribute. (Bancroft: Pacific Coast In- 
dians, Vol. 5, p. 357.) 

When the church of Delve in North Ditmarschen was to 
be built, the people, being unable to decide on a site, caused 
an image of the virgin to be tied on a pied mare, which they 
let run whithersoever she would, and wherever the mare was 
found there the temple should be erected, and the next morning 
the mare was found in a marshy spot thickly overgrown with 
thorns and underwood, and the place was cleared and the 
church built. (Thorpe: Vol. 3, p. 3.) 

The pied mare is the moon with the image of the new 
moon or virgin; the moon mare runs to the meeting place of 
sun and moon, and there at the stopping place the sun erects 
the tall church steeple on the marshy shore of the moon on the 
evening of the third day. 

The moon is still called the mare, as the sun was the horse; 
her name comes from Mare (the sea), the origin of our name 
Mary, who was the ancient moon sea, the mother of all things, 
and begat all the solar children, the wise men and redeemers. 



THE MARSH REED— THE NEW MOON ROD AS 
THE SACRED REED— THE WINTER OMEN. 

Chapter IV. 

A reed was one of the four signs of the Aztec year, and 
ci bundle of reeds stood for a cycle of 52 years, the number 
of weeks in a year. 

Tezcatlipoca, the evil enemy of Quetzalcoatl, let himself 
down by a rope twined from a spider's web to a place called 
Tulla, the land of the Tulas or reeds, where they played a 
game of ball for the kingdom. (Bancroft's Pacific Coast 
-Indians, Vol. 3, p. 239.) 



THE ANCIENT CITY 19 

The Peruvian Indians were found buried with reeds by 
their sides, and rush mats were found over mummies. 

In that thicket of reeds the boar lay in ambush to slay Idmon 
the Seer and Adonis at the summer solstice. ( Argonautica : 
B. 2nd, p. 81.) 

Ea, the God of the sea who provided a way of escape 
for the Babylonian Noah, confided his warning to a hedge of 
reeds. Shamashnapishtim heard the address from the field 
of reeds to flee for his life and take refuge upon the sea. 

"Reed-bed, O reedbed; Frame, O frame; O man of 
Shurippak, son of Ubara-Tutu. Frame the house! Build 
a ship! Leave what thou canst — seek life." 

It was the reed that whispered the secret of the long ears 
of Midas to the world, for it was the voice of wisdom from 
the deep, the prophet of winter. 

The reed was the emblem of winter, and was put in the 
hand of Christ to show that the summer reign was over.. It 
was put in the hand of Prometheus in winter, but in Spring 
he brought down the fire from the sun in that hollow reed or 
horn of the moon. 

The reed pipe belonged to the shepherd race of winter, 
who were of the lunar race, and their reed pipe was inferior 
to that of the golden lyre of summer; and that is how Pan, 
the god of shepherds, ventured to set his reed music in opposi- 
tion to the summer lyre of Apollo and was overcome, and how 
Midas the moon was cursed with long ears for an adverse 
decision to Apollo; for Midas was the moon, and that was 
how the moon became cursed with his long ears, which is the 
long ring of the new moon turned up in two long ears which 
the monarch endeavored to conceal; but the secret was dis- 
covered by his valet or barber, who finding it difficult to con- 
ceal, dug a hole in the ground, in which he buried the secret; 
but the reeds grew up upon the spot and whispered the secret 
to the winds, for the words secreted in the dark hole of the 



20 THE ANCIENT CITY 

moon at the conjunction with the sun, can only be kept for 
three days while the sun and moon cross tracks every month, 
for on the third evening the secret is revealed in the long ears 
of the ass, or first ring of the moon ; for the ass was the symbol 
of winter, and carried the winter god, as the horse was the beast 
of the summer sun. 

That is why Christ rode on an ass, and why the winter 
ass carried the Holy Family to Egypt in winter exile; Midas 
as the winter satyr and reed god vied with Apollo the summer 
sun in the same way, and was flayed alive or lost his robe. 

And the king's barber saw the ears of Midas; he it is who 
shaves the head of the sun, like the bald Elijah and Samson 
shorn of his strength in sheep-shearing time; and the barber 
buried the secret at the foot of a cluster of bullrushes in the 
moon marsh, but the moon cast it up on the third day as it 
did Jonah, for no secret can be held there for more than three 
days. 

The rod of generation in Spring has become a hollow, 
barren reed, the same reed in which Prometheus will bring 
down fire again in Spring, and in these hollow reeds of the 
marsh the cradle of the water child Moses will be found afloat, 
and the land raised and the marsh drained by the sun god Her- 
cules; the Hydra slain and the city rebuilt in the marsh of the 
moon waters — the Bulrush is under the dominion of Saturn. 

In the judgment world of the Egyptians, Ani kneels before 
the god Horus upon a reed mat, and the throne upon which 
Osiris sits is placed upon reed mats. (British Museum Papy- 
rus, No. 10,471.) 

The first cemeteries of Busiris and of Mendes were called 
the "Meadow of Reeds" and the "Meadow of Rest;" they 
were secluded among the marshes of sandy islets where they 
were safe from inundation. 

Very anciently in the Egyptian belief the souls of the dead 
Went to the other world by a ladder through a gap in the 



THE ANCIENT CITY 21 

mountains of Abydos, and their destination was Sekhet Aaru 
— "the field of reed plants" and "field of peace" in the north 
of Egypt. 

They had been born and cradled on the river among the 
reeds, and when life was done went back to the reedy land. 

In Jewish sacrifice a hollow reed was cut for the ashes of 
the red heifer, and the red heifer was bound with a rope of bull- 
rushes. (Barclay's Talmud.) 

In Chaldaean magical texts and incantations, are found: 
"The huge reed of gold, the pure reed of the marsh"; "the 
pure dish of the gods"; "the reed of the double white cup 
which determines favor, the messenger of Merodach am I." 
(Sayce: Religion of Ancient Babylon, p. 466.) 

Rushes in former times were strewed in banquet halls and 
churches in place of carpet and used ceremonially. The rushes 
were brought in a rush cart drawn by twenty or thirty men 
decked with ribbons ; then followed a religious ceremony, when 
hymns were sung. 

Among the ancient Hindus the altar was spread with the 
Kusa or sacred rushes, and on this was poured the libation of 
soma, and the fire lighted while the priests chanted sacred 
hymns. 

The pipe reeds which grew about Lake Orchomenus were 
cut at the rising of Arcturus. (Pliny: B. 16, Ch. 66.) 

Quetzalcoatl, the culture god of the Toltecs, was born 
of a virgin in the reedy marsh of Tula, the land of reeds. (Lord 
Kingsboro's Antiquities: Vol. 6, pp. 175, 176.) Like the 
Egyptian Horus and the Hebrew Moses. 

The word tula is common on the Pacific coast, California 
and Mexico, for reed, and the name tula found in Central 
Russia, and the sign of the solar month in Hindu, which cor- 
responds to the sign of Libra, is Tula (a reed). Libra the 
Balance is the autumnal sign where the sun was weighed in 
the balance. 



22 THE ANCIENT CITY 

Put a reed in his right hand (Mark 15:19) ; Sponge on a 
reed (Mark 15:36). 

"There was given me a reed like unto a rod." (Rev. 
11:1). 

That is the reed in which Prometheus brought fire. 

Toltec, a contraction of Tulatec and Tultec (Charnay). 

According to the traditions of the Quiches, they came from 
Tulan; there were several by this name — one in the region of 
the setting sun, and over the sea by several migrations, and 
in their exodus complained of the extreme cold, the long dark 
night, and the barren country. ("America" Britannica, pp. 
704, 705.) 

According to traditions of Guatemala, they refer to a 
colony from Tulapan. 

There is a river Tule of California; also a lake called 
Tulare, which may be allied to Tulle, a town in France. 

See Tulisa, the name of the moon maiden in the Hindu 
tale of the Woodcutter's Daughter. 

And all these tales of Marsh settlements hark back to the 
reedy shores of the moon lake, the imaginary home of their 
ancestors. 

The Toltecs came from Tollam and entered the valley of 
Mexico in the Seventh Century, and built their capital, Tollam. 

Aztec, Quiche, and Gautemalan emigrations and expedi- 
tions all speak of the country variously spelled as Tulan and 
Tollan — "Land of Reeds," and the coarse reeds growing 
around the lagoons of Mexico and California are still called 
Tulas. 

Island of Thule, the ultima of Greek legend, which has 
various northern locations by Pytheas, who states that its cli- 
mate was neither earth, air nor sea, but a chaotic confusion of 
these three elements; which would agree well with the ideas 
of the ancients in regard to the mysterious nature of the moon 
marsh likened to the reedy marsh of their own settlements. 



PART SECOND. 

THE ANCIENT CITY 

THE WALL BUILDERS. 

Chapter I. 

The first building of the ancient city occurred in Gemini, 
the Zodiacal sign of the twins more than six thousand years 
ago, reckoning back by the precession of the equinoxes and the 
first city of Babylonia. 

The sacred city of Eridu was built at the mouth of the 
Euphrates more than six thousand years ago, reckoning by the 
present rate of the river drift, and built in the sign of Gemini, 
called by the Chaldaeans "Sivan" or the month of "brick 
laying." 

These twin builders are in substance sun and moon; they 
occur as Cain and Abel, and Romulus and Remus, and Simeon 
and Levi in Jacob's blessing. (Genesis 49:5, 6.) 

The moon is fairyland, and the sun and moon are the 
castle builders of the sky. 

The black giants build the black moon, but the royal arch 
mason alone, that god of light, can set the keystone of the 
arch, which is the ring of the new moon. 

The ancients well understood the subject, for they call 
the builders Cyclops or "circle eyed," having an eye in the 
middle of their forehead, who are the giant builders — sun and 
moon. 

The Greeks called the builders of their ancient prehis- 
toric walls Pelasgians, sons of Neptune, the wall builders of 



24 THE ANCIENT CITY 

the sea; but Pelagaeus was a name of Poseidon, the Nep- 
tune, the ocean god of the black moon, who helped build the 
walls of Troy. They were also the Telchines and Dactyli, the 
forgers of metals in the moon, and controlled the elements and 
brought clouds and storms, but the Hellenes or solar race drove 
out the Pelasgi from Greece, as the Heliadae or sun race drove 
out the Telchines or forgers in Rhodes; they are the Lapithae, 
or stone builders who drove off the Kentaurs or moon or winter 
race, and these two races correspond to the Volsung and 
Niblung, the bright or summer gods who overcome and super- 
sede the dark races of the moon. 

It was the well known contest between Neptune and 
Athene, or the Spring fire and the salt sea for the possession 
of Attica, but Athene was the spring light that mingled with 
and purified the waters and produced the olive, the symbol 
of the peace and harmony of Spring. 

We know who the builders were, for Jacob set up the 
moon pillar at Bethel and Hercules reared the two pillars (twin 
forks of the moon) at Gades. 

The first great monarch of Chaldea is also the first great 
temple builder. 

The Phoenician El, the Kronos of Greece, was the founder 
of Gebal, the first of Phoenician cities. 

Lycaon, the first king of Arcadia, founded the city of 
Lycosura, on the slope of a mountain, according to Pausanias, 
the most ancient city in the world. (Pausanias: 8, 38.) He 
had fifty sons and slew his young son and offered him up at a 
sacrificial feast to the high god Jupiter; for this offense Jupiter 
destroyed his dwelling and turned Lycaon into a wolf. 

Lycaon is the Spring sun who creates anew the moon 
temple. His fifty sons are the fifty-two weeks of the year in 
round numbers; and the son is the midsummer son slain 
every year like Adonis and Tammuz and Atys — that only 
son offered up every year by the Phoenician Kronos, and the 



THE ANCIENT CITY 25 

only son offered up by the Jewish Jehovah, and Lycaon is the 
sun Jupiter himself, who becomes a wolf upon the fold. 

Apollo and Neptune built the walls of ancient Troy. 
They are the sun and moon. Apollo built the fire wall and 
Neptune built the black wall of water. 

The Xelhua who built the pyramid for the Mexican Quet- 
zalcoatl. 

(From Bull's Inscription of Khorsabad: Records of Past, 
Vol. 11): "On the propitious day of the happy month, the 
month of Sivan, I measured the ground and I moulded bricks. 
In the month of Ab, the month of the god who lays the found- 
ing stone of towns and of houses, all the people assembled and 
performed the ceremony of Sulul. Bel-El lays the foundation 
of my city; Mylitta Taawth grinds the painting stone in his 
bosom." 

The Free Masons, originally a Society of stone builders, 
are now united as a social order. 

That first city ever built, the city of the moon, is con- 
tinually rebuilt from its ashes, the city of fire and smoke, the 
city of contention and strife, the city founded in blood. 

It was the city of the east built in Spring and appears on the 
Zodiac as the city built in the sign of Gemini, by the twin 
brothers Shin and Bel, or the moon and sun — Shin the moon 
was the elder, and this sign was called the "month of building" 
and the "month of bricks." 

These twin brothers were enemies and lived in one house, 
the moon, and that was the house divided against itself, which 
forever fell, for it was founded in blood and strife. 

Jacob in his last blessing to the twelve sons, says of Simeon 
and Levi, who were the divinities of the sign Gemini, "Simeon 
and Levi are brethren; instruments of cruelty are in their habi- 
tations." 

"O my soul, come not thou unto their assembly, for in 



26 THE ANCIENT CITY 

their anger they slew a man, and in their self will they dug 
down a wall." (Genesis: Ch. 49.) 

They appear as the two brothers Romulus and Remus, at 
the founding of Rome, as Remus, the dark brother leaps over 
the rim of the dark moon he is slain by a flash of fire from the 
sun, and becomes the new moon ring, an agent and partner 
in the building of the city. 

Cain went eastward and built a city in Spring in the 
desert of Nod, the land of the exile and vagabond, the land 
of refuge, the first place that would receive him; it was the 
black desert of the winter moon which had arrived at the 
Spring equinox. There Abraham went eastward in Spring 
and planted the tree of life and dug the well in the house of 
the moon. 

We read of the classical Amphion and Zethus, twin 
brothers, who built the walls of the city of Thebes, where 
the stones took their place in obedience to the sound of a lyre, 
which means the harmony of Spring. The stones are the rings 
of the moon that nightly take their place until the moon city 
is complete. 

He is the harper, the moon minstrel, when the winter 
winds have ceased, and the sun and moon are in harmony, 
building the Shilo, the city of peace, for the sun and moon 
were both musicians — the hoarse winter winds have ceased, 
and have toned down to harmony, as when the morning stars 
sang together at the beginning. 

We read of Agamedes and Trophonius, the same two 
brothers, the twin brothers of the sign Gemini in the month of 
building; these two brothers built a treasure house for Hyrieus, 
the Arcadian monarch, and left a movable stone in the wall 
by which his treasures were abstracted by the wall builders. 
It is the Niblung treasure stolen every year and secreted in 
the moon vault; and all these temples and palaces are built 



THE ANCIENT CITY 27 

in the moon sea. Agamades and Trophonius are but specific 
names of Zeus, the sun and moon. 

The movable stone is the bright ring or door of the moon 
down through which the gold is stored in the vault of the 
moon, which is Hades. 

But when the celestial temple of the moon was brought 
down to the earth it must inherit the mythical origin of its 
prototype, its bright pillars must come from afar and set by 
deft and cunning artisans, like the builders of the moon temple, 
the pillars come from a dark and magic land by night, for out 
of the dark they come, and into the dark they go, and they 
must be built of nature stones of God's own workmanship. 

On that part of the old desert moon marked by the first 
ring of light, was founded variously an altar, shrine, temple 
or city. 



FOUNDING OF THE CITY OF THEBES AND 

DISCOVERY OF THE LOST EUROPA, 

THE PRINCESS OF TYRE. 

Chapter II. 

The discovery of the most ancient site of the city of 
Thebes, and the startling revelation of Europa, the lost Princess 
of Tyre, who disappeared while gathering flowers in her garden 
by the shore of the sea. 

Her father, Agenor, King of Phoenicia, sent his son 
Cadmus, accompanied by his mother, in search of the lost 
maiden. Search was vain, and her mother died broken 
hearted in Thessaly, and Cadmus was ordered by the Del- 
phian oracle to cease troubling himself about his sister, and to 



28 THE ANCIENT CITY 

follow a cow as his guide and build a city where she should 
lie down, and there sacrifice the cow. 

After leaving the temple he saw a heifer slowly going 
along without a keeper and bearing no mark of servitude, and 
followed her through Boeotia until she came to where Thebes 
afterward stood, and there the heifer lay down and was sacri- 
ficed, and there he founded the city and gave to it the name 
of his mother: Theba, the "ark" — for he was born in the ark. 
In her fondling arms his mother held him through the raging 
flood, and where the ark rested he built the city. 

The above story is like many of its congeners — a moon 
yarn, which by the ingenuity of mythographers is made to read 
like history. 

Cadmus, the "easterner" from "Kedem," "the east," is 
the Adam Cadmun of Phoenicia, and our Hebrew and Chris- 
tian Adam the sun prince, who returns to the Spring equinox 
every Spring; he is looking for his sister, the moon princess, 
who has been stolen by Jupiter and carried off to Hades and 
transformed to a cow, wearing the two white horns, Jupiter 
himself having taken the form of a white bull. 

Europa is the wandering Io (the moon) who was likewise 
changed to a cow, wearing the two white horns of the moon, 
and cursed to roam the earth in winter lowing with pain, 
stung by the goad fly, which is likewise the fire bug or ring of 
the new moon. The heifer is turned loose by day and invis- 
ible or hidden by the rays of the sun, but at night tied up to 
a pole, which is the dark moon or dun heifer tied up to that 
tall pillar of the new moon. 

Europa is the Egyptian Isis, changed to a cow and cursed 
to wear horns in winter servitude. 

She is the northern Brynhild, cursed in winter sleep to 
become a mummy wrapped in a husk until Sigurd, her de- 
liverer, shall come and rip the dark husk of the black moon 
with a gleaming sword and display the white linen of her 
under-garment. 



THE ANCIENT CITY 29 

For sacrifice means redemption; it is the red gash of the 
sword of light upon the black moon ; at that stroke she becomes 
the spotless virgin of the Spring garden; but for that sacrifice 
she would have remained forever under the curse. 

The heifer which Cadmus, the sun, saw was the dark 
moon, the "dun cow" without a keeper; that is, having no 
mark or brand of an owner. As soon as he branded her with 
the ring of the new moon he became her keeper and husband, 
for it was her wedding ring in Spring. She had been lowing 
with pain and looking for her deliverer. 

But in the after summer the heifer is again stolen by the 
winter robbers, as the heifer was stolen from Samson by the 
Philistines, who said to the Philistines: "Had ye not ploughed 
my heifer, ye would not have solved my riddle," for she had 
been branded by the Philistines, and had become again the 
winter cow wearing the yoke (new moon ring) upon her neck, 
the brand of Hades, the winter monarch. 

Cadmus married Europa, the moon heifer, under the name 
of Harmonia, for the winter and summer have met at the 
Spring equinox, and peace and harmony are restored. The 
old ship Argo, the ark, has returned with the golden fleece. 

(Consult Davies' Mythology of the British Druids, p. 121, 
for the landing of the ark on May eve, and the sacrifice of 
the "lowing cow," and on that spot was peace; and again 
the sacrifice of the two cows at the great stone in the field 
of Joshua, the Beth-shemite, which had brought back the 
ark of the Jews from the land of the Philistines. (First Sam. 
6:14.) 

"A heifer will meet thee in the lonely fields, one that has 
never borne the yoke and free from the crooked plough, and 
where she shall lie down on the grass there cause a city to be 
built and call it Boeotia, "the Cow City." 

In this way the city of Troy was founded by Ilus, who 
had received a heifer as a prize for wrestling, and was directed 



30 THE ANCIENT CITY 

to follow the cow until she lay down on the hill of the Phry- 
gian Ate where he founded the city of Troy. 

For in early times the leader, settler and emigrant, on arriv- 
ing at his destination first erected the family altar like Noah, 
and all the arkites and offered sacrifice, which was the principal 
worship of old time, and celebrated in mimic rite to this day, 
for all religions were founded on blood, without which there 
could be no redemption. 

A cow of great beauty among the Sabines was sacrificed 
and hung up in the temple of Diana, for soothsayers had pro- 
phesied that sovereignty would rest where the cow was immo- 
lated. (Livy.) 



THE FOUNDING OF JERUSALEM, THE CITY 

OF PEACE— STORIES FROM 

THE RABBIS. 

Chapter III. 

There were two brothers who had adjoining farms. The 
one brother had a large family, and the other had none. And 
the brother with a large family said: "My brother with no 
family must be lonely," and he took some of the sheaves from 
his field in the night time and set over on his farm and said 
nothing about it. And the other brother said: "My brother 
has a large family and he must have hard work to support 
them, and I will take some of the sheaves from my farm in the 
night time and set them over on his farm and say nothing 
about it." 

And they continued to do this every night, but every 
morning things seemed to be just as they were at the begin- 



THE ANCIENT CITY 31 

ning, which the brothers could not understand. But one night 
the two brothers met with their gifts, and when they beheld 
and understood, they called that place the Mizpah, or place 
of meeting, and it was chosen for the site of the city of 
Jerusalem, or the sacred peace. 

It was the meeting of sun and moon at the Spring equinox, 
or treaty of peace on the boundary line between two king- 
doms. 

The sheaves are the same that stood up before Joseph 
in a dream of the night and did reverence to his sheaf. 

The sun sets the white pillars or sheaves or rings upon the 
moon, but at daylight the moon sets them back. 



FOUNDING OF THE CITY OF ROME. 

Chapter IV. 

The Romans, when founding their cities, observed peculiar 
sacred rites — ceremonies probably of Etruscan origin. 

Upon a certain day previously selected by the Augurs 
as propitious, the founder of the city yoked a bull and cow 
(which represented the sun and moon) to a brazen plow, the 
bull upon the outside, and the cow within, and ploughed a 
deep furrow around the site selected for the future city, while 
others followed and turned all the sods inward to the city; 
and the ridge formed in this way marked out the line of the 
wall and the furrow that of the fosse; but the plow was lifted 
from the earth over the site of the gateway, for the plow con- 
secrated the ground, and the gateways were left unploughed 
or unconsecrated, or there could have been no way of entrance 
or egress, for it was not lawful to cross consecrated ground. 



32 THE ANCIENT CITY 

Queen Dido inclosed her grant of land in an ox hide 
which was cut in a long string, and the string is the scarlet 
thread of the new moon. In other tales the site of the city 
is marked out by a plow, which is the same golden furrow 
of the new moon of Spring, around the dark inclosure. 

The site left for the gateway over which the plow was 
lifted, represented the gap between the two forks of the moon. 

The sun pierces the soil of the moon with a golden plow 
or sword, and in Persian traditions Djemschid, chief of the 
dynasty of the Achaemenides, was the first to open the Persian 
soil with a golden sword. 

The first day of the year is a holy day with the Chinese, 
and the Emperor with the people repair to the "Sacred Field" 
to offer sacrifice, and the Emperor takes the plow in hand and 
strikes a furrow, and this is repeated throughout the provinces 
by the high officials, followed by religious ceremony. 



THE ISLAND CITY AND THE CITY OF THE 
SAND-BAR. 

Chapter V. 

The following is a legend discovered by Mr. Pinches, 
Records of the Past, New Series, Vol. 6, a creation legend 
from the Semitic time of Babylonian history. 

"The glorious house, chief temple of Eridu, before the 
deep had been made, before a city had been built, when within 
the sea the current was; in that day Eridu was made — Eridu 
was founded within the deep." 

From Babylonian Religion and Myth by L. W. King, 
of the British Museum: 

"All lands were sea; at length there was a movement in 
the sea ; there was Eridu made, the holy city was built. Marduk 



THE ANCIENT CITY 33 

laid a reed upon the face of the waters; he formed dust and 
poured it out upon the reed that he might cause the gods to 
dwell in the habitation of their hearts' desire. He formed man- 
kind with the help of Aruru; they created the seed of man- 
kind of the Ushu plant, and the Ditti plant of the marsh, and 
Marduk laid in a dam by the side of the sea — brick he made, 
cities he built." 

The same feat is accredited to Manibozho, the Algonquin 
chief, who created the earth from a grain of sand brought 
from the bottom of the sea. 

After the return of the Babylonian hero of the ark, Bel 
said to Shamashnapishtim (Noah), "Let him and his wife be 
as gods and dwell afar off at the mouth of the seas." (Mas- 
pero: Ancient Chaldea, p. 572.) 

These islands described were pictures of the white moon 
island, the first land created in the moon sea, and like all other 
lunar scenes were brought down and located upon the earth. 

A variation is found in Griffis' Religions of Japan, p. 63, — 
The god stood on the floating bridge of heaven and plunged 
a jewel-pointed spear into the unstable waters beneath and 
stirred them up until they gurgled and congealed, and when 
he drew forth his spear the drops trickling from its point formed 
an island ever afterward called "The island of the congealed 
drop," and upon this island the divine pair descended, and 
the man and woman separated to make the journey around the 
island, the man to the right and the woman to the left. They 
are the two forks of the new moon, and the left fork is the 
woman; these two forks encircle the moon. 

The reed in a Japanese myth, quoted by Tylor in Journal 
Anthropol, 1876, where at the creation there arose from the 
soft mud a reed or rush called Asi, from v/hich sprang the 
the creator of land — that is the Hindu Asi, the Norse Asa, 
the Hebrew Asa the healer, the Hindu Iswara, the first ring 
of the moon. 



34 THE ANCIENT CITY 

We can locate the mouth of the river by the following 
curious tale from the Classics, where it is related that Alc- 
maeon, afflicted with madness for the murder of his mother 
Eriphyle, was pursued by the avenging Furies and fled from 
one place to another, but no place would give him rest, like 
Cain of old, for the country in which he stopped became barren 
and accursed for his sake. He was at last informed by an 
oracle that his only chance of escape from the Furies was to 
find and dwell in a land which was not in existence at the time 
of the murder. And this refuge was found on an island at the 
mouth of the river Achelous, formed by the alluvial deposit 
of that river. This is decisive. The island is the new moon 
of the Spring, the new formed land just raised from the moon 
sea. 

Alcmaeon is the sun prince born of the sun; he has been 
in exile during the winter, chased from one sign to another, 
and wherever he attempts a settlement the land is cursed with 
barrenness, for his rays are feeble. He is Cain, the fugitive, 
and Bellerophon on the plain of his wandering, and the Wan- 
dering Jew, and where Moses the murderer fled. 

For as all the ways and acts and thoughts of man were 
regulated in ancient times by the moon, and the observations 
of lunar antics, houses of refuge were established upon the 
earth by most of the ancient nations where the murderer 
could flee to a city of refuge and be safe if he could reach 
the shrine or sanctuary of a god; these criminals were pro- 
tected as well as punished. Cain had a mark upon his fore- 
head — the ring of the new moon, which was the name of God 
and the cross of Christ, which was a charm or talisman; and 
that white island of the new moon sometimes floating, some- 
times anchored, was the first land ever created at the churn- 
ing of the waters. 

That white island or sand bar on the margin of the black 
moon washed as river drift and deposited as a sand bar at 
the mouth of the moon river. 



THE ANCIENT CITY 35 

Latona was the first wife of Jupiter, the woman who 
wears a black veil, and persecuted by the jealousy of Juno, 
who had obtained a promise from the earth to give no shelter 
to her rival, but Poseidon (Neptune) knew of the island of 
Delos, then hidden under the waves which had formerly floated 
upon the sea, and he caused the island to rise and stand fast. 

There Latona found an asylum and gave birth to Apollo 
and Diana; it was the little Zoar or house of refuge for Lot, 
and the sand bar for Alcmaeon. 

Delos was a nearby island chosen by the Greeks to rep- 
resent the white island raised up in the blue waters of the moon, 
where all the celestial gods were born; that original cave or 
cell of life from which Adam was born and where he hid him- 
self when he heard the sun coming, for the moon vanishes at the 
sight of the sun. Latona was the Hagar persecuted by Sarah. 

They were the wandering rocks of Cyaneae that were 
destined to stand still and take root when first a ship should 
pass between them. The ship is the moon ark, the black moon 
of Spring that enters the Spring equinox, and the rocks are the 
twin turrets or towers of the moon which stand fast and anchor 
— where the ark grounds there is built the city of peace. 



THE ILLUSORY CITY. 

Chapter VI. 

"Vismapana," the illusory city — the aerial city of the Gand- 
harvas, which appears and disappears at intervals; the hallucin- 
ary city of the Hindus, which is the moon. 

It is the same as Saubha, a magical city — a flying, aerial 
city, a self-supporting city, visible and invisible by turns, 
which stood on the shore of the ocean. It was built and owned 



36 THE ANCIENT CITY 

by the Daityas or Titans, a race of demons or giants. 

The city of Ahura Mazda is a heavenly city, guarded by 
angels, for the Hindu gods live in jewelled cities. 

That heavenly Garden made in the night with jewelled 
pillars, walls, lawns and pools, with golden birds and perfumed 
breezes. "The pennons of that city of Kausambi seemed like 
twining arms." (Which are the arms of the new moon.) 

It is the city described in Tale 1 3 of Sagas, of the far east, 
produced by a talisman that was fished out of a shallow stream 
and produced a city upon a plain; and again sold to merchants 
who also built with it a flourishing city in the midst of a plain 
surrounded by groves. Every time it was lost it was again 
recovered to rebuild the city; and the talisman is the first ring 
of the moon, which is lost every month and returns on the 
third evening to rebuild the moon with shining pillars. 



SOLOMON'S TEMPLE. 

Chapter VII. 

There shalt thou build an altar unto the Lord thy God, 
an altar of whole stones. Thou shalt not lift up any iron tool 
upon them." (Deut. 27:6.) 

"Thou shalt not build if of hewn stones, for if thou lift up 
thy tool upon it thou hast polluted it." (Exod. 20:25); 
(Jos. 8:31.) 

The reason why the use of iron was forbidden in the con- 
struction of the altar and temple was, we are told in the Mishna 
(Middoth 3, 4) that iron was the chosen symbol of dark- 
ness and winter, when the sun was a captive in winter and 
wore the iron mask. 

(Stories from the Rabbis by Abram Isaacs) : King Solo- 
mon was forbidden to employ iron in building his temple, and 



THE ANCIENT CITY 37 

summoned his counsellors and laid the case before them; but 
none could tell how the temple could be erected, and the stone 
cut without the use of iron. At length one of the sages said: 
"There is something far mightier than iron." 

For in the days of creation when light and darkness con- 
tended for the mastery, the Almighty called into life a tiny 
worm (Shamir) which possessed the power of splitting the 
hardest rock; but none knew where the worm was to be found, 
for its hiding place had never been discovered. 

Solomon dismissed the assembly, and by his dazzling signet 
ring, upon which was written the ineffable NAME, summoned 
to his presence two Genii. They came like the rushing wind 
and the rumbling of an earthquake and bowed before him; 
and they told King Solomon that their king Ashmedai (Asmo- 
deus) alone knew its secret abode; that their monarch lived 
far away upon the crest of a lofty mountain where he had dug 
out a deep pit which he had filled with water and covered with 
a stone, and that every night he uncovered the fountain and 
drank of its water. 

It was then Solomon sent his faithful servant Benaiah pro- 
vided with a chain and ring, both engraved with the name of 
God — a fleece of wool and some skins of wine, and Benaiah 
drew off the water of the well and filled it with wine. 

And it was when the sun had set and the stars shone, 
Ashmedai raised the stone and descended into the well and 
drank the wine, until a deep sleep fell upon him. It was then 
Benaiah came from his hiding and fastened the chain around 
his neck and stamped him with the great seal which bore the 
name of God. 

And he was taken before Solomon, who said to Ashmedai : 
"I am about to build a holy temple and need the Shamir stone; 
tell me where it is concealed." And the evil Ashmedai re- 
plied: "I have it not; it is in the keeping of the Prince of the 
sea, and confided to a fowl of the air who is bound by a solemn 



38 THE ANCIENT CITY 

oath to keep it unharmed for all time. High on a mountain 
top the fowl has made its nest which it never forsakes;" and 
Benaiah was again summoned to set out upon his journey. 

And it was found that the king of the demons had con- 
fided this Shamir stone to the keeping of the woodcock of 
the mountain, and the name of this bird was Nakkar Tura — 
"the sculptor of the rock." He had borrowed it from Ash- 
medai to cleave the barren mountain asunder, and into the 
cleft he dropped the seeds of various plants that the mountain 
might be clothed with verdure. 

The mountain and the nest of the bird were found, and 
the nest contained a brood of young which was artfully con- 
cealed by Benaiah with a glass, so that when the bird returned 
with food it might see its young, but not be able to feed them. 
When the bird returned and found the nest glazed over, it 
went immediately and brought the cleaving stone, and as she 
was about to cut the glass the messenger of Solomon gave a 
shout which caused the bird to drop the stone in fright, when 
the messenger made off with his prize. 

The mountain is the black moon mountain of the sky; the 
nest is the sun spot or bright ring made by the sun; that is the 
"eagle's nest"; he is the messenger bird, the first settler and 
civilizer of that barren waste; he cleaves the mountain with 
that sword of light and covers it with vegetation; he is seen 
to cleave that wasteland every Spring after the devastation 
of winter and build there the shining temple with pillars hewn 
out of the black rock as by magic. 

The Shamir is the first ring of the Spring moon from which 
all the other stones or rings are dropped one on each night; it 
is that sword which hews light out of the darkness until it has 
built the moon temple of shining white pillars. This Shamir 
stone was used to cut the stones on the breast plate of the 
high priests; the Urim and Thummim, which represent the 
twelve courts or heavenly houses of the ecliptic, which are the 



THE ANCIENT CITY 39 

twelve halting places of the sun in his annual round of the 
heavens. 

The Shamir, sometimes called a worm, and again a thorn. 
Odin transformed himself into this wriggling worm when he 
bored through the black cavern of the moon to bring back the 
stolen mead from Gunlad the giantess. 

The two Genii of the deep summoned by Solomon, are 
the two forks of the moon — the same two ravens or messen- 
ger birds which sat on the shoulders of Odin and brought him 
tidings. 

The rock where the great bird fixed its nest is the rock 
Etam, where Samson fled, the "rock of ages" cleft for Moses; 
the high mountain rock where Satan drew Christ; the rock of 
the Acropolis, where Poseidon (Neptune the sea) contended 
with Athene, the Spring virgin moon, for the mastery, and by 
their united action soothed and purified the waters and brought 
forth the olive, the symbol of victory and peace. 

And that fountain where the evil Ashmedai drank, is 
where the winged horse Pegasus flew up to Mt. Helicon and 
fixed his abode, and where he produced the fountain Hippo- 
crene with a blow of his foot. 

It is the story of Midas and Silenus of the Classics. Midas 
is the sun whose touch turns all things to gold, and Silenus is 
the moon, the Ashmedai in milder form. Midas fills the same 
moon fountain with the wine of Spring, which Silenus the toper 
drinks and becomes sleepy, and is captured by Midas for the 
purpose of obtaining the secret of his wisdom. 

Ashmedai drank at that fountain at night when he lifted 
the black stone covering of the moon well, the same rock Jacob 
lifted to water the sheep of Rachel, and the black stone rolled 
back from the sepulchre of Christ; it is how Odin had to 
pawn his eye or put out his eye of day, the sun, before the 
moon fountain will open at night, for the moon fountain is 
covered by day with the black stone. 



4 o THE ANCIENT CITY 

The Ashmedai and Silenus are the winter destroyers which 
the sun every Spring is obliged to conciliate and obtain their 
assistance in the annual warfare of the year, for the moon de- 
prived of the civilizing rays of the sun runs back to savagery. 

Ashmedai, the winter moon, is brother to King Solomon, 
as Silenus is brother or the other self of Midas, or as Loki to 
Odin, but the good and the evil have to blend to restore har- 
mony. 

The Venus must wed the half savage Vulcan the smith; 
the Spring moon has to be cast in the sea and wed the dragon 
of the deep. 

That fountain where Ashmedai and Silenus drank is 
where Heabani, the Babylonian satyr, drank with the beasts of 
the field — that man of savage mien and matted locks; he is 
the winter moon redeemed by the harlot Venus, the sunshine 
of Spring. 

To us these moon pillars are known to come from the 
sun, millions of miles away, when one is set up every night 
until the temple is complete, but in remote times the moon was 
supposed to shine by its own light — self-luminous, and to the 
uneducated the pillars were seen to come out of the unknown 
darkness by some mysterious agency. 

And the builders of the ancient temples, as giants or 
strangers, must come from afar, and the temples of the earth 
must be built as far as possible after the model of the moon 
temple without the mark or sound of a hammer. 

Solomon retained Ashmedai until the temple was built, 
and one day when alone, said to Ashmedai: "What, pray, is 
your superiority over us?" If it be true, as written in Num- 
bers 23 :22, "He has the strength of a unicorn." Ashmedai 
replied: "Just take this chain from my neck and give me thy 
signet ring, and I will soon show thee my superiority." And 
as soon as Solomon complied with his request, Ashmedai threw 
the ring in the sea, where it was swallowed by a fish; and he 



THE ANCIENT CITY 41 

transported Solomon four hundred miles away in a foreign 
land, where for three years he wandered up and down as a 
vagrant, begging his bread from door to door with a staff and 
water jug, and became at last head cook at the palace of King 
Ammon, and while acting as cook, Naama, the King's daugh- 
ter, fell in love with him and eloped to a foreign land, and 
one day as Naama was preparing a fish for dinner she found 
within it the ring the demon had flung in the sea, and by this he 
recovered his throne. . 

The fish is the black moon that swallows the sun ring, the 
British Ceridwen or Ceres, who swallowed Guion the little 
sun ring ; the same ring Sakuntala lost while bathing in a sacred 
pool, the ring of her betrothal. (Dowson's Hindu Classical 
Dictionary.) 

The ring is the new moon, that magic ring which has power 
over all things in heaven and earth; the key that unlocks all 
mysteries and betrays all secrets. 



DIANA'S TEMPLE. 

Chapter VIII. 

DIANA'S TEMPLE AT EPHESUS. 

A marsh was selected for the site of Diana's temple at 
Ephesus, one of the seven wonders of the world, to represent 
its prototype, the shining temple of the moon, which stood 
upon the marshy shore of the moon sea. 

The foundation was laid first with layers of charcoal to 
represent the burnt and charred surface of the moon, and this 
covered with fleeces of wool to imitate the fleece of the sun- 
light, which covered the dark orb with a robe of light. 



42 THE ANCIENT CITY 

Before the temple was built it was thought it would be 
necessary to bring the rock from foreign lands, but one day 
a shepherd, by name Pixodorus, while watching his flocks, saw 
two rams fighting, but as they missed stroke on the charge, one 
fell and knocked a chip from the rock which was found to be 
lustrous white on the inside, and revealed a quarry from which 
the temple was built. 

(The chip knocked off the moon is shown by the scratch 
or first ring of the moon which reveals the crystal rock within.) 

The wheels that moved the stone in the construction of 
the temple were 12 feet in diameter, and were the two wheels 
of the sun and moon to represent the twelve hours of night 
and day, or the twelve months of the year. 

But the architect found it impossible to place the keystone of 
the arch over the doorway, and gave up in despair, and in his 
worry fell asleep, and in his sleep he dreamed that the stone 
fell in position of itself, and when he awoke he found the key 
stone of the arch in its proper place; and the keystone was the 
ring of the new moon ; it was Diana herself who had taken her 
seat on the throne, which was the ring of the new moon, the 
throne of all the gods. 

In the temple, when completed, was placed a statue of 
the Goddess of ebony and covered with bronze and alabaster 
to represent the three forms of the Goddess in the three seasons. 

The late excavations have verified the statement of the 
charcoal and bags of wool placed in the foundation in its early 
construction; they have been dug up fresh and well preserved. 

To this temple the debtor fled and was safe, and all the 
offenders of the law were immune within a bow shot of the 
temple. Precious stones and treasures were deposited there 
for safe keeping in the care of the Goddess. 



THE ANCIENT CITY 43 

STONE HENGE. 

Chapter IX. 

These gigantic remains are built with striking analogies 
throughout Europe, Asia and Peru, and based upon the same 
leading astronomical and cosmical conceptions, and were every- 
where of unknown origin and referred to giants, Pelasgi, 
Demons and Cyclops, most ancient dragon temples. 

The megalyths of Stone Henge of Britain belong to a 
prehistoric age of cyclopean remains as found in Greece, Asia 
Minor, Italy, and the islands of the Aegean Sea, for in that 
early age immense stones were scattered over the face of the 
earth. 

Stone Henge was a Druidical temple called the "City of 
Stones" and "Caer siddi" (the circle of the Zodiac). Its 
grand entrance to the northeast, like the gates and portals of 
other temples and caverns in reference to the summer solstice. 

The builders of Stone Henge were up to date with all the 
astronomy extant in their time; they understood the leading 
principles of astronomy, the orbits of the planets, the precession 
of the equinoxes, and the metonic cycle, etc. 

The temples of that time were constructed according to 
known cycles: 12 — 19 — 30 — 60. Twelve, the number of 
the solar months — nineteen the metonic cycle — thirty the de- 
grees of a sign, and sixty the sexagenary circle. 

Stone Henge was a cosmical temple dedicated to the 
worship of their national religion. The mysteries of Ceridwen, 
the British Ceres, were celebrated there in the Fifth Century 
of the Christian Era side by side with Christianity. 

On the morning of midsummer day the sun arose just over 
the top of the "Friars Heel" at Stone Henge, which was a 
large upright stone and pointed — a rough stone unworked. 



44 THE ANCIENT CITY 

For the Gnomon stone of Stone Henge was stationed for 
taking the summer solstice; but at Abury the Gnomon stone 
was set to observe the exact time of the winter solstice. 

Heads and horns of buffaloes have been found there, proof 
of bovine worship and sacrifice. 

Stone Henge and Avebury succeeded the old dragon tem- 
ples of ancient serpent worship, but the altar preceded theini 
all and was erected in a grove and afterward followed by the 
temple and church. 

This primitive altar was first built of white stones by the 
sun in his holy temple of the moon, and copied upon the earth 
by the foolish race of men. 

These planetary temples that were at once religious and 
astronomical have been broken up for the building of barns and 
pig-styes, and the stones used in their construction were at that 
time very numerous and of large size found lying loose on the 
surface, and not as has been supposed drawn from a great dis- 
tance. 



ORIGIN OF THE SWISS LAKE DWELLINGS. 

Chapter X. 

Lacustrine sites are found by hundreds on the Swiss lakes 
of Zurich, Geneva, Neufchatel, Brienne, and they are found 
in France, Lombardy, Austria, Germany, and in Eastern 
Europe, Scotland, and North Wales, Asia, Africa, and South 
America. 

The Swiss Lake dwellers were a semi-pastoral people and 
drove their herds home to their lake settlements at night. 

Bones of the domesticated ox, sheep, and goat have been 
identified. But more abundantly are the wild animals of the 
chase as Urus, Bison, stag, boar, roe and fox, but the horse 
had not been domesticated until later. 



THE ANCIENT CITY 45 

The Swiss Lake dwellers were a peaceful race; their 
houses were not fortified. 

It is now known that the Lake dwellers of Switzerland 
were the same race and civilization contemporary with the main 
land and other parts of civilized Switzerland. 

In the bronze age the men were of all small stature, and were 
of a mixed character with surrounding nations. For the Swiss 
Lake dwellers can be traced from the stone age through the 
ages of copper and bronze to their latest age of iron. 

It has been generally supposed that these lake dwellings 
were constructed for defense and security. But they could 
have built the same protected towns in the adjacent hills much 
stronger, safer and more convenient with far less labor and 
expense. The primal idea must have been religious. 

They were evidently moon worshippers of the old type, 
and their villages were built on piles to imitate the moon city 
built on white pillars in the moon waters as taught by that 
one: "Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters." 
(Psalms 104:3.) 

For the moon worship dominated the ancient world; it be- 
gan in savagery and furnished the warp of our religion of to-day. 
Agreeable to this view they believed the whole earth set upon 
pillars. 

"For the pillars of the earth are the lords, and he hath set 
the world upon them." (1st Sam. 2:8). 

The foundations of many of the ancient cities and temples 
of higher civilization were laid down in the marsh. 

"The glorious house chief temple of Eridu, when within 
the sea, the current was ; in that day Eridu was founded within 
the deep." (Records of Past, New Series, Vol. 6 — Baby- 
lonia) . 

A bridge of the bronze period connecting the hut with the 
shore was found thirteen feet wide at Lake Brienne — (for the 
thirteen lunar months of the year). 



46 THE ANCIENT CITY 

The platforms of their one-story huts were usually about 
27 feet long, representing the number of days of the lunar 
month. And lunar head-rests used for pillows while sleeping 
and shaped like the disc of the moon are found among their 
remains. 

In 1856 at Cumarola, Italy, forty warriors were found 
buried together in one place in the Marl beds. (Gastaldi Lake 
habitations.) The number held sacred in common with the 
Mound builders and rude nations. 

In the graves of the Swiss Lake dwellers there were found 
buried with each skeleton forty flakes of the tusks of the wild 
boar pierced at each extremity. 

Lake dwellers are mentioned by Herodotus and others; a 
powerful tribe who lived on platforms resting upon piles on 
Lake Prasias, south of Roumelia (Herod. V. 16) and a 
powerful tribe once checked the Persian army. 

There was nothing more remarkable about them in their 
physical, intellectual and moral character than other races of 
their time, which had been in motion and commotion from 
Paleolithic times since the retirement of the glacial age. 

The early origin of the Lake dwellers and their lake occu- 
pancy is nebulous and indefinite ; probably they had followed up 
the retreating glaciers of the ice age which had formerly driven 
them south to the Mediterranean. 

They had existed from the early stone age up through 
the copper and bronze to the iron age of the Roman period. 
Mixed with surrounding tribes and nations, suffered invasion 
and tribal war, and from later schooling and the introduction 
of iron and superior warlike implements had advanced more 
rapidly, and through the change and improvement of the times 
had gradually abandoned or been forced to leave their Lake 
dwellings. They were scarce even in Roman times. 

It is supposed that upon the introduction of iron and 
superior warlike weapons, the Swiss Lake dwellers were over- 



THE ANCIENT CITY 47 

run and subjugated by Eastern invaders, and the Lake dwell- 
ings were gradually abandoned. 

In their earliest known period they were semi-civilized, 
progressive people, had domesticated animals, wove garments, 
raised wheat and barley, and had overland trade; and accord- 
ing to their industrial remains are found to have advanced 
steadily upward in improvement from the stone age to the 
Roman period. 

Their tools, weapons, and industrial implements are found 
to have been continually improved from ruder prototypes like 
their domestic animals. 

Their civilization came from abroad from the Mediter- 
ranean and the Euphrates, over prehistoric trade routes. 

Lake dwellers, like the mound builders, had no written 
language, though doubtless they lived in the Swiss lakes 
through the early ages of Babylonian civilization; even as the 
rude tribes of Indians on the Ohio and Hudson and Mohawk 
rivers lived there all through the time of the civilization of 
Central America and Mexico. 

Even in the highest stage of the Aztec civilization there 
were wild tribes upon the outskirts of the Empire who menaced 
and fought back their civilization, its tyranny and restraint. 

Lake dwellings were predominant in Central Europe; 
their greatest development was found in the lakes bordering 
on both sides of the Alps which offered superior attractions 
for their habits of life. These Lake dwellings and marshes 
were the favorite sites of all the early nations, but continued 
longer in Central Europe, being more remote from high civil- 
ization. 

Though doubtless pile dwellings were used for defense 
and safe retreats in forests, lakes, and marshes, by fugitive tribes 
and outcasts, they were also the chosen seats of early communi- 
ties for quiet, domestic life, affording a bountiful supply of 
fish and game together with vegetable food. 



48 THE ANCIENT CITY 

Their settlements were of various sizes; some covering 
thirty acres of ground, some built in bays and in retreats shel- 
tered from the wind. Their lakes were subject to great change 
in outline like our great lakes of the Northwest, some of which 
are now hundreds of feet lower than their ancient margins; 
lakes raised and lowered by geological fractures, and the eleva- 
tion or depression of their outlet. Some of the Swiss lakes 
have deepened, some by the drifting of the hill dirt down, drove 
back and deepened the lake. Others have dug their way out 
by wearing a channel and left their bottom dry land, and some 
have increased their area by the deepening of their outlet. 

Venice, the city of Venus, who was born of the sea, has 
been built on a marshy sea-covered plain where islets have 
been formed by the action of the currents assisted by art suf- 
ficiently hard to be built upon, seventy or eighty of which 
have been appropriated, upon which the city of Venice now 
stands. 

The tide lays bare daily a great plain of mud — the city 
for the most part is built upon piles and stones. 

A grand canal cut through the city in the form of a ser- 
pent (letter S reversed) divides the city in two parts; again 
146 smaller canals subdivide the city or water streets. The 
gondola is their car and coach. Three hundred bridges cross 
the canals so that one can travel also upon land. 

Although the marshy islands of Venice served as a retreat 
and defense against barbarian invaders like the crannogs of 
the British Isles, it may have been originally founded upon the 
old lunar superstition universal in the ancient world, whose 
people built their villages upon piles and moon pillars; and 
that grand canal cut through the city in the form of an S 
reversed, which represented that ancient dragon, the king of 
all waters and the deep. 

The first settlements were on the shores of lakes and the 
marshes of river bottoms. 



THE ANCIENT CITY 49 

London arose from a rude cluster of pile dwellings — the 
relics principally belong to the Roman era. 

Glastonbury was formerly a lake village covering between 
three and four acres, where have been found remains of both 
the bronze and iron ages. 

The Aztecs came from the north, as seven tribes from 
Aztlan, and settled in the reedy marsh on the border of a lake 
in the Mexican valley and built their capital on piles. 

We have seen how a marsh was selected for the site of 
Diana's temple, at Ephesus, on the shore of the Aegean sea, 
541 B. C. 

And Dodona, the most ancient shrine of the Greeks, was 
surrounded by marshes; and the oldest Athenian sanctuary of 
Dionysus stood in the marsh of Dimnai. ( Anthon : Class Dic- 
tionary.) 

How the first temple of Eridu at the mouth of the Eu- 
phrates was raised from the sea. 

The moon was from the beginning the water carrier and 
distributor of the waters, and controlled the tides of the ocean, 
and was also the god of wisdom, and was brought down to 
inhabit the sea and came out of the sea, for the old Babylonian 
as Oannes, the fish god and instructor of their race for many 
ages, and incarnations. 

Viracocha — "foam or fat of the sea" — the Peruvian 
builder and civilizer, raised out of Lake Titicaca and built 
cities and towns on the lake, which are still the wonder of 
nations. 

Dagon, the culture god and civilizer of the Phoenicians, 
was a fish god. 

The Phoenician Derceto of Askelon, was the goddess 
of moisture and birth, and her worship was held upon the sea- 
shore; she figured as a woman above, and a fish below the 
waist. 

The goddess Berytus came out of the sea, and so did 
Venus. 



50 THE ANCIENT CITY 

How Jonah, the preacher, came out of the sea; and how 
Christ and his fishermen disciples dwelt around the shore of 
the sea; and after the Babylonians and Hebrews had moved 
up their moon-pillared temples to high ground, they still retained 
their pillars, and had in Solomon's temple a molten sea with ten 
bronze lavers — five on the north and five on the south of the 
court of the priests. (1 Kings, VII, 23-40.) And this was 
modelled after the more ancient Babylonian sea, which harked 
back to the pillared sea of the moon, which was the original 
model of all earthly temples and the fountain of wisdom to the 
ancient world. 



PART THIRD. 

FOUNDATION SACRIFICE 

Chapter I. 

The tales of these ancient cities built by magic and super- 
natural agency, are tales of that city of white pillars built in 
the moon marsh, built of Hermaic pillars, which are brought 
from a foreign land in the night, and planted in the marsh of the 
moon sea. 

There are always the two first stones in the foundation 
of that moon temple that sink in the marsh and disappear; 
it is only on the third night that the stone or ring of the new 
moon stands firm, and appears on the third night bathed in the 
blood of sacrifice or sunlight, the blood of the sun. 

Before Romulus could build Rome his brother Remus 
must be slain, and as he leaped over the black moon wall, he 
was slain by the flash of sunlight. 

Cain could not build his city until Abel was slain, and 
God protected the assassin and gave him a passport. 

Before the world could be redeemed the Only Son must 
be slain, and his own father gave him up to the executioners, 
though he begged for his life, and that the "cup might pass 
from him." 

Once the Slavs on the Danube purposed founding a new 
city, and the heads of the people sent out men early before 
sunrise to take the first boy they met and put him under the 
foundation. (Grimm: p. 1143.) 



52 THE ANCIENT CITY 

He is the first ring of light born upon the moon. For the 
foundation stone must be bathed in blood. Sacrifice existed 
formerly over the world and began in savagery. A victim 
must be buried under a wall or bridge to render the wall secure, 
and this victim, willing or not, became a protecting spirit and 
guardian angel as buried under bridges and walls, and under 
dykes and fortresses. Before a bridge could be built in India 
the piers must rest on the heads of children. 

And the oracle consulted requires the sacrifice of the only 
son of a widow, where a chief has been slain, and that place 
is selected for the site of the temple. 

At such festivals human sacrifice was slain and eaten. 

And that son of the widow is the sun child, or ring of light 
slain upon the moon, his widowed mother, at the third day of 
her darkness. 



FOUNDATION SACRIFICE. 

Chapter II. 

Sacred buildings required a sacrifice; this sacrifice was 
offered to the god under whose protection the edifice was 
placed, and he became the Tutelar god. 

When King Canut, surnamed "the saint," was first build- 
ing churches, in Danish tradition, he prayed God that he might 
build them strong enough to last to the end of the world; and 
he went to the seashore and obtained froth with which he 
ordered his masons to build, and this froth became hard as 
stone, which will never decay. They were called "froth 
walls" — a white, porous stone which imitated the white froth 
of the new moon on the shore of the dark moon, that froth or 
amrita churned by the fire bolt or serpent of fire from which 



THE ANCIENT CITY 53 

Venus, the new moon of Spring was made, which were the 
first moon temples created. (Thorpe: Vol. 2nd, p. 246.) 

A little child was buried in the wall of the Eifel tower at 
Winneburg; at the church of Blex, in Oldenburg, the founda- 
tions gave way, and a child was bought from a poor family 
at Bremerleke and buried alive in the foundation. 

Walls of buildings were seen to sink in the ground or the 
black waters of the moon, unless constructed when the moon 
was auspicious. They sank the first two nights of the dark 
moon in occultation, but on the third night when the ring of the 
new moon or cornerstone apears, it is found that blood has 
been shed, and the foundation of the temple rendered secure, 
and the pillars are then added one every night until the moon 
temple is complete. 

To us it is the blood of the sun which anoints the first pillar, 
which is the three pillars in one; but in the early ages of super- 
stition the moon was supposed to be self-luminous. 

Cities and thrones and kingdoms must be founded with 
blood. At the time of the old Babylonian creation, it was 
found that some ingredient was wanting, and the god Bel cut 
off his own head and kneaded the clay with his blood to create 
man. 

A city could not be built without the blood of Uranus, or 
the murder of Remus. The year could not begin, nor the 
Spring opened, without the slaughter of the lamb or the blood 
of sacrifice. 

The Uranus must be maimed that his blood might flow 
upon the moon sea to fertilize the waters — a peace offering to 
the angry winter sea; and the fruit of this strange union was 
love and peace. The blood of the sun alone could open the 
moon door of life. 

The black giants build the black walls of the moon, and 
the white pillars are set by the sun; after two stones have 
sank the victim is found, and the third stone is bathed in blood 



54 THE ANCIENT CITY 

which is what we call the new moon, for the moon waters 
are unstable for a foundation. 

King Vortigern attempted to build a strong tower, but it 
always crumbled down, and the wizards spake sentence that 
the tower could not be built until the ground stones were wet 
with a child's blood that was of woman born, but no man had 
begotten. (Grimm; p. 1 143.) 

That is the new moon child born of an incubus, or night- 
mare, but of no man begotten, like Merlin the Enchanter of the 
British Druids, and Christ the miraculous child of all My- 
thology, seen suddenly born from the dark womb of the moon 
as by magic. It is while the moon has been in a trance and 
visited by an incubus, or the christian Holy Ghost in the dark 
dream of the night. 

The Holy Ghost is the flash of moonlight made by the 
sun in his sleep upon the moon. 

These skeletons have been found walled up or buried 
under east and west foundations of old buildings in Europe, 
and the skeletons laid in the hard marl and covered with an oak 
slab. 

These earthly stories present a fac-simile of all the scenes 
and phenomena of the moon stage. 



THE CITY WALLS. 

Chapter III. 

We can locate the wall, for Joseph is a fruitful bough by 
a well whose branches run over the wall. (Gen. 49:22.) The 
wall is the black moon over which runs the vine of the new 
moon. 

The waters were a wall to Israel on their right hand and 
left as they passed through the Red sea. They are the black 



THE ANCIENT CITY 55 

walls of the moon through which runs the red road or dividing 
line of the new moon rod. (Exodus 14:29.) 

Rahab, the harlot, dwelt on that town wall. (Josh, 
2:15.) 

The ass crushed Balaam's foot against that wall. (Num. 
22:25.) 

The little sister of Solomon's song: 
"If she be a wall we will build upon her a palace of silver; 
If she be a door we will inclose her with boards of cedar." 

"I am a wall, and my breasts like towers" — that is the chink 
in the wall where Pyramus and Thisbe of Babylon whispered 
their love and their vows. 

The little silver keyhole or new moon ring, where light 
shone through the black wall of the moon, and the same keyhole 
through which Peeping Tom saw the nakedness of Lady 
Godiva, for which he was smitten with blindness. 

The black wall of the moon on which the doom of Nebu- 
chadnezzar was written — the "Mene and Tekel." 

The victor in the Olympic games on going home entered 
his native city in triumph through a breach made in the walls 
purposely for his reception; it was to imitate the breach made 
by the sun through the black wall of the moon. 

"Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of cruelty 
are in their habitations. O, my soul! come not thou into their 
secret! Unto their assembly mine honor be not thou united; 
for in their anger they slew a man, and in their self will they 
dug down a wall." (Gen. 49:5, 6.) 

It is the breach made in the wall of the moon, the gate or 
silver door; the rent Remus made when he leaped the wall of 
Romulus; the Ginungagap or breach made in the moon house 
by the fire wedge as told in the Norse creation. 

They are the Jacob and Esau, the white and black, who 
quarrelled while still in their mother's womb (the moon) for 
dominion. 



56 THE ANCIENT CITY 



THE BUILDING SACRIFICE. 

Chapter IV. 

A bridge was built near Rosporden, in Cornwall, but as 
soon as the rain storm swelled the river, the bridge was de- 
stroyed, until a child of four years old was buried under its 
foundation. It was put naked into a barrel and given a con- 
secrated light in one hand and a bit of bread in the other. 
The child in the barrel with a torch represented the new moon 
ring concealed in the dark room which will appear on the 
third night. 

In "Slav Sagas" there is a tale where Manoli, the master 
builder's young wife, was buried. He was to build the clois- 
ter of Arges, but every night the work was destroyed, and he 
dreamed that a woman should be buried before the work could 
stand, and he told his assistant builders the dream, and they 
agreed that whoever of the wives of the masons came first 
next morning to bring her husband his breakfast, should be 
immured in the wall of the cloister, and an oath was sworn 
that none might betray. 

The next morning Manoli, the young wife of the master 
mechanic, came through a flood and tempest with her loving 
gift, though he had prayed God for the rain storm and the 
tempest to keep her back, but no power could save her, for 
it was the unalterable fate. She was buried behind the brick, 
still crying to her husband to save her and her unborn child. 

This sacrifice became a guardian spirit, like the sword of 
Eden and the cherubs, which stood at gates and entrances, like 
the head of Bendigeid Vran cut off and buried in the White 
Mount in London, and buried with his face toward France, 
that no evil might come from that way. 



THE ANCIENT CITY 57 

A story tells that Copenhagen in the olden time was to 
be surrounded by a wall; but no wall would stand — what 
was built was destroyed until the builders took a little girl and 
put playthings before her, and while she sat playing, twelve 
masons built a wall over her while drums were beaten and 
trumpets sounded, and from that day the builders were able 
to raise the walls. (It is giving children to Moloch; a piacu- 
lar sacrifice or expiatory atonement.) 

The castle of Liebenstein was built in the same way, where 
a child was buried among the foundation stones; its own 
mother sold her child to be walled up, and a cake was given 
the child, and while the masons did their work the child looked 
out from the hollow in the wall and said: "I see mama yet," 
and when the opening grew smaller it said: "I see mama 
still." And after the last stone had filled the opening its voice 
was still heard crying: "I can't see mama any more!" 

A living child was buried to the east of the churchyard 
to stay the plague in Denmark and Sweden and in France; 
sometimes a priest was thrown alive in the ditch. Quintus 
Curtius, a Roman knight, plunged into a crevice which had 
sprung up on the forum Romanum, as a sacrifice for his people. 

A living man or animal must be sacrificed to insure the 
edifice. Often of old the builders took the first animal they saw 
or met and bricked it up in the wall or under the foundation, 
and this animal became the guardian spirit. 

In Southern Sweden, it is said, no church has been built 
there without having a bull or cock buried under its founda- 
tions. 

In the church of Dalby, in Denmark, a goose or gander 
is buried. In Gudme a sow; in Viby a black sheep. 

A church in Jutland was founded upon two grey hounds. 

And this was a common practice in northern Europe, 

from unknown time down, and the skeletons of children and 



58 THE ANCIENT CITY 

adults and of various animals have been found in modern times 
immured in walls and over doorways and beneath the founda- 
tions of temples, arches and bridges. 

Foundations smeared with human gore, and all from an 
insane lunar superstition — the blood of the sun seen shed upon 
the moon altar — all through the ancient world. 

A ship could not be launched without a sacrifice; the 
fleet of Agamemnon at Aulis would not move until his own 
daughter Iphigenia had been slain. 

And at the return voyage of the Trojans the fleet would 
not move without the sacrifice of Polyxena, the daughter of 
Priam and Hecuba. 

The sacrifice survives to-day in christening a new launch 
with wine, and coins and sacred texts are still buried under 
cornerstones of churches and public edifices. 

All public works and important undertakings were begun 
with sacrifice — they sacrificed before going to war. 

An animal buried under the cornerstone of a church as a 
wolf, goat, sow or dog, brought security to the edifice, and 
the ghost of the animal (like the ghost of the moon which it 
represents) wandered about at night as a Kirk-Grim or pro- 
tecting spirit; as the little sun child was seen walled up in the 
moon, or swallowed up in its waves as an offering — it was the 
soul of the sun; its death was meritorious; it became sanctified 
and was a guardian of the moon temple, its guardian and 
oracle. 

With this belief the mother could give up her babe to 
die as she does to-day, in the fond assurance that it is only 
lent and still lives with Jesus. 



THE ANCIENT CITY 59 

SACRIFICE PROPITIATORY. 

Chapter V. 

It was the maiden thrown in the Nile, an offering for a 
fruitful season, an offering to the water god ; a Jonah thrown in 
the sea to still the waves; a sacrifice taught by the moon; that 
holy fire thrown upon the moon waters. That maiden hovering 
over the sea in the Japan story, whom the raging water of the 
moon-sea as a dragon was waiting to devour, and when the 
maiden fell, the sea was stilled, and she wed the dragon; the 
Venus, the maid of beauty, wed to the sea smith Vulcan. The 
Atathensic of the Iroquois myth precipitated in the sea — the 
mythical Jonah of Paul's time. That lamb slain every Spring, 
and the house doors washed with the red blood as the door of 
the moon temple was bathed with the rays or blood of the new 
born sun, the Sun of Life. 

Among the Dayaks of Borneo, upon the erection of a house, 
a deep hole is dug for a post, and the post suspended over the 
hole in which a slave girl is placed; then the lashing of the 
pole is cut and the pole caused to descend and crush the 
maiden. (Tylor: Primitive Culture, p. 96.) 

For this foundation sacrifice exists as well in the lowest 
savage life as in high civilization. 

The rod of life, the first new moon of Spring, which raises 
the dead, divides and heals the waters, becomes the foundation 
stone of the first city laid down in the moon waters in Spring. 

Remus, the brother of Romulus, vaulted the boundary 
line of the moon, and fell burned as the smoking ring of fire, 
which is the first new moon of Spring. Romulus, his brother 
(the sun) slew him with a flash of fire or sword of light as he 
leaped over the rampart of the moon. 



60 THE ANCIENT CITY 

CHRISTIAN SACRIFICE. 

Chapter VI. 

It was customary in the old time to bury a dog or boar 
alive under the cornerstone of a church, that its ghost might 
haunt the churchyard and drive away those who might pro- 
fane the place. (Henderson's Folk Lore, p. 274.) 

In Sweden the beast which haunts churchyards is called 
Kyrkogrim; at that place the founders of Christian churches 
used to bury a lamb under the altar, and when the lamb, or 
at other times the grave sow appeared to the grave-digger, it 
was a presage of death. (Henderson; p. 274.) 

As late as 1843, when a new bridge was built at Halle, 
the common people wanted to have a child buried under the 
foundation to render it steadfast. (Henderson: p. 274.) 

But the favorite offering among Christians was the lamb 
buried under the altar or under the cornerstone of a church — 
it was the lamb of God. 

In the old churchyards of Northern Europe a horse was 
buried before any corpse was interred, for in their belief the 
devil claimed the first soul buried in a new churchyard. 

The belief that the devil claimed the first child baptized 
in a new church was everywhere widespread. It was the 
sacrifice of the crossroad, where the sun and moon met, and 
the moon will never allow the sun to cross her path without a 
tribute of blood; that is the toll bridge; that is the coin de- 
manded by old Charon the ferryman of the death boat. 

In later times of foundation sacrifice the mortar was tem- 
pered with the blood of beasts. Or sometimes the shadow of 
some stranger passing was caught upon the wall, and a reed 
applied to the shadow for a personal substitute, and then the 
reed and the shadow walled in. 



THE ANCIENT CITY 61 

Gould, in Strange Survivals," p. 2, quotes: "We are told 
by an Italian historian that when Sessa was besieged by the 
King of Naples, and ran short of water, the inhabitants put a 
consecrated host in the mouth of an ass and buried the ass 
alive in the porch of the church, and at the completion of the 
ceremony the windows of heaven opened and the rain de- 
scended." 

The ass is the black moon, and was the beast of burden 
for the sun children and carried Jacob's family to Egypt 
(Winter Hades) and carried the Holy Family there. 

The consecrated wafer in the ring of the moon put in the 
mouth of the black donkey, which was an offering to the moon, 
which was the rain god of all antiquity, savage and civilized 
alike — the same wafer used in the Eucharist. 

The foundations of temples, houses and bridges were laid 
in blood and under the cornerstone was placed a child, or dog, 
or wolf, a cock, goat, or criminal; and every church was asso- 
ciated with some animal dedicated which went by the name 
of the Church Grim, or the church ghost, and the ghost of this 
animal wandered about the churchyard at night or abode in 
the church tower. 

The same superstition has been brought down to the pres- 
ent time, that of depositing coins, papers, or a bible as guar- 
dians and talismans under the foundation of churches and public 
edifices, relics of ancient sacrifice. 

For earthly houses of worship represented moon temples, 
and the priest at the altar personated the first pillar of the moon 
temple, that high priest Melchizedek of the moon altar. 

The following is from an inscription of Sennacherib : "The 
ancient Timin of its palace those of old time had stamped its 
clay with sacred writing and repeated it in the companion 
tablets." Again, p. 31, "The Timin of old times had not 
been forgotten owing to the veneration of the people. With 
a layer of large stones I enclosed its place and I made its deposit 



62 THE ANCIENT CITY 

secure." (Inscription of Sennacherib: Records of the Past, 
Vol. 1, P . 29.) 

In the old Druidical religion of Britain, the Druidesses, who 
were wives and daughters of the Druids, who resided in an 
island at the mouth of the river Loire, were obliged every year 
between sunrise and sunset to demolish and rebuild the roof 
of their temple, and if any of their number should let fall the 
least part of the sacred material, she was torn in pieces by her 
companions. 

But no year passed without the accident; it was the yearly 
sacrifice of the rebuilding of the temple. It was the maiden 
destined to be the bride at the Easter wedding who is de- 
stroyed, and the third day reborn as the Spring flame of love ; the 
new moon like the feet of Signy, the sister of Sigmund, the 
Volsung at the Spring conflagration of the moon when the 
winter tree of Siggeir the Goth is uprooted and his palace 
burned, and Signy is burned all but her feet, which is the new 
moon found in the ashes of the burned moon. She is reborn 
as the Easter moon. Sacrifice means salvation and rebirth; 
and all these savage tales are of the sun and moon humanized 
to appear like history. 

On laying the foundation of a Christian church in the 
Sixth Century of the Christian Era, the wall fell through the 
working of evil spirits as soon as erected, and it was foretold 
that they could never be made permanent until a human victim 
was buried alive under the foundation; when Oran, a com- 
panion of St. Columba, offered himself and was buried alive* 
and at the end of three days St. Columba had the earth re- 
moved to take a last look at his old friend, when Oran stood 
up to the surprise of all, and began to reveal the secrets of his 
prison house, and declared that all that had been said of hell 
was a mere joke. 

He is the new moon which rises from the grave on the third 
day. 



THE ANCIENT CITY 63 

JEWISH SACRIFICE. 

Chapter VII. 

"Moreover he burnt incense in the valley of the son of 
Hinnom and burnt his children in the fire after the abomina- 
tions of the heathen." (2nd Chron. 28:3.) 

"Inflaming yourselves with idols under every green tree, 
slaying the children in the valleys under the clifts of the rocks." 
(Isaiah 57:5.) 

"For the stone shall cry out of the wall and the beam out 
of the timber shall answer it. Wo to him that buildeth a town 
with blood and establisheth a city by iniquity." (Habakkuk 
2:11. 12.) 

"In his day Hiel the Beth-elite built Jericho, he laid the 
foundation thereof in Abiram, his first born, and set up the 
gates thereof in his youngest son Segub." (1 Kings, 16:34.) 
"Cursed be the man before the Lord that riseth up and 
buildeth this city of Jericho; he shall lay the foundation thereof 
in his first born, and in his youngest son shall he set up the 
gates of it." (Josh. 6:26.) 

This was written after the Jews had been captive in 
foreign lands, and had reformed, but for ages the Jews were 
not much if any above the Canaanites, and their altars ran red 
with blood. 

REMARKS ON SACRIFICE. 

Chapter VIII. 

We read of the Grecian General Aristodemus, who slew 
with his own hand his virgin daughter in obedience to the 
command of the Delphian oracle, which bade him sacrifice 
his own virgin daughter, an offering to the infernal deities for 



64 THE ANCIENT CITY 

success in battle; which is the same poetic fancy as that of 
Iphigenia and Jeptha's daughter — the giving to the aerial 
forces of nature a personal name and terrestrial habitation. 

The first place of worship was an altar stone — the stone 
of sacrifice which preceded the temple which still continued 
the altar of sacrifice, and has continued on to the present time — 
that circle of the new moon altar where a humanized god is 
slain and his body and blood are devoured by the moon mon- 
ster that demands blood. For all sacrifice has been taught by 
the moon. 

Were these monster tales of human sacrifice ever supported 
by fact, or were they destructive forces of nature personified 
and distorted by the fiction of poets? How much of this shall 
we believe? Shall we believe that ever even in savage times, a 
human victim was offered up? Yes; it was the old inheritance 
of savagery continued on in a less degree in the ages of civil- 
ization. Why not? When within our own time the Hindu 
mother threw her babe in the Ganges to be devoured by a 
crocodile, and threw herself upon the funeral pyre of her hus- 
band as a suttee, that pyre of human faith, and worshipped 
that same crocodile and mummied his remains in a sacred cham- 
ber of the dead, for the crocodile was the symbol of death — 
Hades — or destroying power, the evil power to which they 
were subject; and they were taught like ourselves to kiss the 
rod and bless the hand that gave it, as Christian mothers to-day 
give their babes to Christ the God of Life and Death, by whose 
magic power they will be reborn in immortality. That croco- 
dile is now worshipped as Siva, the destroyer. 

For in ancient Europe slaves and captives of war were 
sacrificed in heaps, and in Mexico, four hundred years ago, 
the hearts of captives in war were torn out and held up to the 
sun while still throbbing with life, and millions of Christians 
have been slaughtered in modern Europe and offered up to a 
Christian God, and in Africa to-day the wives and slaves are 
buried alive with their departed chief. 



THE ANCIENT CITY 65 

For they looked upon death in despair, and cried to the 
heavens and earth for help, and studied and imitated the won- 
ders of heaven, but principally the moon with its blood-stained 
face, its alternate destruction by fire and resurrection to life 
on the third day, and they built moon altars on which they lit 
fires and offered incense and bowed before the moon and 
waved their hands and threw kisses at the moon, and the 
women purified the temple with holy water and wiped and 
dried the floor with the long tresses of their hair. For sacrifice 
was taught by the moon, and the Hindu suttee in reverence 
followed her ordinance; and as the ship of the moon arrived 
every Spring at the equinox with the solitary hero and redeemer 
(the new moon) and departed at the end of summer as the 
Golden Fleece in the same ship, their departed heroes were 
placed on a burning ship in the same way and turned seaward 
to carry them home. 



PART FOURTH. 

THE SACRED ISLAND 

Chapter I. 

One of the most surprising and unintelligible features of 
the ancient religions is their universal reverence for sacred islands 
and insular inclosures in bays, lakes, and at the mouth of a 
river. 

Dr. Borlase speaks of huge remains of Druidical monu- 
ments in the Isles of Scilly, where Druidical mysteries were cele- 
brated. 

Meroe was a sacred island in the Nile, formed by two 
tributaries, the Astaphos and Abaras. (Ency. Brit., Vol. 5, 

Elephanta is the sacred island near Bombay with its rock 
hewn cave and statuary. 

The Sacra Insula of the Tiber was the sacred island near 
its mouth, caused by the bifurcation of the river; the sacred 
serpent brought by the Romans from Epidaurus went ashore 
on this island. 

The sacred island of Dilvun lay in the Persian Gulf, which 
Dilvun is Diluvium, the island of the deluge or the deep. 

They are there found to exist among the rude and half civil- 
ized races as well as among the most enlightened. 

Manitoulin (spirit islands) in Lake Huron, were sacred to 
the Huron Indians. 

From Stephens' travels in Yucatan we learn that on the 
sacred island of Cozumel, in Yucatan, existed a sacred temple 
which was visited by vast multitudes of natives from all parts 



THE ANCIENT CITY 67 

of the peninsula; the roads leading to it were paved with cut 
stones. (Stephens II, p. 122.) 

The Isle of Mona or Man, between Britain and Hybernia, 
was a sacred island and seat of the Druids. 

There is the sacred delta of Orissa containing the deposits 
of three rivers on the extreme southwest of Bengal, and the 
whole delta is sacred ground; "every town is filled with temples 
and its best acres devoted to the gods; one year they are de- 
stroyed with drouth and another by flood, still their life is 
given up to toil and the worship of the all destroying Siva." 

The temple of Jupiter Ammon was an island oasis of 
verdure, a garden in the sandy desert west of Egypt. 

This white island in the dark waste of the moon was likened 
to an oasis, a Tadmor in the wilderness, a Palmyra in the 
desert. 

Artificial tanks and ponds were made adjacent to temples 
containing small islands crowned with appropriate fauna, and 
in the lake swam sacred birds and fish. 

They appropriated also the wedge at the junction of two 
rivers and cut off the broad end of the peninsula by a moat but 
the favorite location was the sand bar at the mouth of the river. 

And little islands in marshes and in the bend of the river 
were chosen for settlements around which grew the city. 

The city of Paris was bora on that little island "La Cite," 
inhabited by the Parisii, an ancient Gallic town before its 
appearance in history. 

The name Paris still suggests the abode of the Peris, or 
fairies, the moon or fairy race. 



68 THE ANCIENT CITY 



THE SACRED ISLAND. 

Chapter II. 

Why was all this worship transferred from the main land 
to adjacent islands in the sea, when often more eligible and 
convenient sites were obtainable upon the shore? 

The origin is not hard to divine, for these mundane islands 
represented the moon, that island of the sky where all our 
religions and religious rites were born, for the moon was the 
most ancient of the gods and the father of the Sun God who 
became his vassal. 

The moon to the ancients was the source of water. In 
lunar romance the dark moon was an ocean lake or black 
river, and the new moon was fished up or raised up as a 
garden or habitation for man; in Cosmogony it was the first 
land that appeared at the creation. 

But the moon was far away, and nearby islands took its 
place for convenience upon which temples and churches were 
reared after the divine original, and inherited its vast repository 
of legends which received a local adaptation. 

And all the sacred islands of the earth were but mundane 
representations of their lunar prototype, and the scenes and 
marvellous tales which were true only to their original home 
have been adapted to their new environment upon the earth. 

And this is how our sacred islands in fable have become 
migratory and at one time floating, and at another sunken 
to the bottom of the sea, and again raised to become new 
Edens to give birth to gods and heroes. 

How they sailed as birds and air balloons and phantom 
ships, disappearing and reappearing in their annual journey 
through the twelve houses of the Zodiac, each of which had 



THE ANCIENT CITY 69 

a stationary moon for a theatrical stage and opened only once 
every year at the arrival of the sun and then closed until the 
next annual arrival. 

This island Delta stood at the mouth of the river Nile 
at Buto. It was at the mouth of the Euphrates as Eridu; and 
it was at the mouth of the Eridanus as Spina, or the spinal 
column of the new moon. It was at the mouth of the Achelous 
for Alcmaeon -the fugitive ; it was the first island planted in the 
sea according to ancient belief. 

This sandbar, delta, or wedge which we call the new 
moon was a triangle — the pyramid represented this triangle 
or new moon on each of its four sides. 

The Greeks swore a sacred oath by this equilateral triangle. 

These twelve celestial islands of the Zodiac as halting 
places and caravanseries of the aerial ship received appropri- 
ate names, and a new name for almost every tale, as "Sunlit 
Hill," "Land of Rings," "Beacon Hill," "Black Castle," 
"Iron Castle," "Isle of Ebony," "Flower-pot Inn," or as in 
the voyage of Maildun "Island of the Burning River," "Isle 
of the Blacksmiths," "Island guarded by a wall of water," 
"Island standing on one pillar," "Isle of the Blest." 

The stopping places and ports made by the Argo were 
all moon islands; so were those of the wandering Ulysses. 

Once every year a merchant ship made a voyage to these 
ports; it brought rich silks and linens and precious stones, and 
the gold of Ophir; it traded in amber and olive oil and charms 
and wonder-working talismans; it carried passengers escaped 
from a burning city and pilgrims bound to a foreign land; 
sometimes a ship waving the white flag of peace, and sometimes 
a pirate ship hung with the black flag of death. 

The earth was an island to our forefathers; an inverted 
bowl or hollow sphere resting on the primeval waters. 

India was an island to the Hundus; their holy Mt. Meru 
was upon an island. 



70 THE ANCIENT CITY 

For the moon furnished the type of creation for the other 
planets. 

Hengist, the Saxon invader of Britain, desired of Vorti- 
gern a grant of as much land as he could compass about with a 
bull's hide; and after his request was granted he cut the bull's 
hide into a long thong and encompassed a large tract of land 
where he built a castle which was called Thong Castle, which 
was the Isle of Thanet. 

The thong is the long lash or rope of the new moon which 
encircles the old estate or domain of the dark moon island. 

It was thrown up to him in after years in the Gododin, 
Song 29, Davies' Mythology of British Druids, p. 379: "He 
it was who robbed us of the fair Thanet and with the white 
and fresh hide." 



ISLAND OF ATLANTIS; ISLES OF THE GENII; 
ISLAND OF ST. BRANDON AND THE 
SEVEN CITIES, AND EN- 
CHANTED ISLANDS. 

Chapter III. 

There existed in ancient times the island of Atlantis, in 
the middle of the Atlantic, which was sunken by an earth- 
quake and flood for the sins of its inhabitants — a fabulous 
island overwhelmed in the sea like Delos and Rhodes and 
the "Cities of the Plain"; they are all images and reflections 
of the moon island now seen floating on the surface of the 
moon sea and again buried and submerged. 

The Chinese had the Isles of the Genii which have been 
the objects of search like our Atlantis; voyagers of discovery 



THE ANCIENT CITY 71 

have come in sight but, driven back by storm or adverse winds* 
could never land. 

Then there was the island of St. Brandon, which existed 
until recent times in the Atlantic, a flying island a little west 
of Ireland which was discovered by an Irish monk in the sixth 
century, while in search of the islands of Paradise; many expe- 
ditions were sent out in search of the island which ended in 
disapointment. 

Again there was the Isle of the Seven Cities; it was at 
the conquest of Spain and Portugal by the Moors that multi- 
tudes of Spanish Christians fled over the sea to escape slavery, 
headed by seven bishops, and after battling with the waves 
were landed upon an unknown island in the midst of the At- 
lantic, where the ships were burned to prevent the return of the 
colony — none ever returned. 

These phantom islands were sometimes enchanted; some 
could be seen from the coast at long intervals, as Hy-Brasail 
could be seen from the coast of Ireland once in seven years; 
some others the priests had tried to disenchant by throwing 
on them sparks of lighted turf, or shooting fiery arrows toward 
them, which are the flashes of sunlight thrown upon the dark 
moon at conjunction which is under a spell, and becomes dis- 
enchanted by the sun rod. 

The Phantom Island which seemed to rise from the lake 
when something remarkable was about to occur. It appeared 
shortly before the death of Charles the XII, and also before 
the death of Gustav III, when the island again became visible. 
(Swedish Fairy Tales, by Hoffburg, p. 59.) 

At the end of summer the island rising is a death omen, 
like seeing the "Trees of gold, the sign that dying eyes be- 
hold." 



72 THE ANCIENT CITY 



STORY OF ALCMAEON, LATONA, AND DELOS. 

Chapter IV. 

There was a man in Greek legend called Alcmaeon, who 
had slain his mother Eriphyle, in consequence of which he was 
struck with madness and pursued by the avenging furies, and 
an oath was exacted from every land that he should be denied 
a habitation or dwelling place. He then fled, and wherever he 
set his foot the land became cursed with famine and changed 
to a desert. 

He then consulted an oracle and was told that the only 
way of escape lay in finding a land that was not in existence 
at the time of his murder, and this he found at the mouth of the 
river Achelous — a sandbar at the mouth of a river which the 
rain and floods of winter had built up above the sea; here he 
married Callirhoe, the daughter of the river god. 

This is one of the most important stories to be found upon 
the subject. 

The above Alcmaeon was the son of Amphiaraus, the pro- 
phet and warrior, who concealed himself to avoid the Theban 
war which he knew would prove fatal, but his wife revealed 
his hiding place, for which she was to receive the necklace of 
Harmonia. The expedition proved fatal to Amphiaraus, who 
was swallowed up by the earth on the battlefield, and his son 
Alcmaeon, in obedience to his father's command, slew his 
mother in revenge. 

The characters in the play are all lunar. Amphiaraus was 
concealed in the dark moon for three days, which is the utmost 
time the moon can keep a secret ; he was hidden under his wife's 
gown, who was the faded moon sitting in sackcloth when she 
was offered the golden necklace (new moon collar) if she 



THE ANCIENT CITY 73 

would betray her husband, which she was obliged to accept 
on the third evening, when the light of the necklace betrayed 
the hiding place of her husband. 

The tragedy takes place at the end of summer and is of 
annual occurrence. Alcmaeon slew his mother at the same 
time with the sword of light (and Amphiaraus and his wife 
take the same journey as Tammuz and Ishtar, and Cadmus 
and Harmonia to the land of shades) . 

And Alcmaeon becomes the fugitive like Cain, Bellero- 
phon, and the Wandering Jew through the winter journey of 
the southern signs, when the ground is frozen. Fury drives 
them on irresistibly as the law of attraction or gravitation ; they 
cannot stop; the sun prince has the yearly journey to perform 
around the ecliptic in whatever house station or constellation 
he would wish to remain; he is hurried on — famine follows his 
track, vegetation has ceased. 

No land will allow him to make a settlement to sow or 
reap, for it would bring but the winter thorns and thistles as 
it did for Adam and Cain. The first fertile land that the 
sun prince will find on that route will be at the Spring equi- 
nox; then the sun has gained sufficient altitude and warmth 
of rays to attract the attention of the earth, and at the con- 
junction at that time on the third day of darkness, he will dis- 
cover the land foretold by the oracle, the little white island 
of the new moon, the sandbar at the mouth of the moon river, 
the land of Nod for Cain, the Zoar for Lot, the Delos for 
Latona, the New Jerusalem, the Shilo of peace. 

Again in Greek legend the island of Delos once floated 
under the surface of the sea until the time when the goddess 
of Latona was in travail and looking for a land of rest, for 
Juno had bound the earth, by an oath, not to receive her 
when Neptune in pity struck the bed of the sea with his 
trident and caused the island to appear at the surface and float 
as an ark. It was then moored by Jupiter and commanded 



74 THE ANCIENT CITY 

to stand fast for the reception of the goddess on the eve of 
her delivery. 

For as the island was hidden under the sea at the time 
of the oath, it was released from the obligation like the land 
found by Alcmaeon. 

The island is the new moon of Spring, the little white 
island in one corner of the dark moon sea. Latona is the black 
moon giving birth to the infant sun-child, or ring of the new 
moon on the third evening of her occultation, for she has been 
in concealment for three days. 

It is the contest in Springtime between Neptune as the 
winter sea, and storm, and Minerva, the Spring moon for the 
possession of Attica, the fight between land and water, as the 
dry land appears for the landing of the ark — the same moon 
island raised up by magic whenever the emergency requires. 

The island of Anaphe, one of the Sporades, was said to 
have arisen by thunder from the bottom of the sea in order to 
receive the Argonauts during a storm and returning from Col- 
chis. It is the white island of the new moon. 

Keightley's Mythology: Tale of the Dwarf's Banquet, 
where Olaf sailed and ran against the mountain of the giants, 
and cut it through and separated it from the island beside it. 
The little island cut off is the new moon. 

With the Tonga islanders of the Pacific, their god Ton- 
galoa went fishing with a celestial fish hook, and he sat up in 
the sky and let down his hook in the ocean, and when his lime 
began to tighten he pulled with prodigious strength and brought 
up points of rock and tops of hills and mountains, when his 
line broke and left instead of a fish the island of Tonga, which 
he gave for a home to the islanders, for they likened the origin 
of their own island to that of the white island of the new 
moon fished up from the moon lake. 



THE ANCIENT CITY 75 



THE AZURE ISLANDS, OR THE WANDERING 

ROCKS. 

Chapter V. 

The Azure Islands, or the Wandering Rocks, stand at the 
entrance of the Euxine; they have many names and are called 
the "Cyaneae," and also called the "Crushers," for they were 
fabled to float about and crush vessels attempting to pass be- 
tween them. They have a curious history and were celebrated 
in the Odyssey and also in the Argonauts. Pindar says they 
were alive and moved swift as the storm wind. 

They were the dread of mariners ; no birds passed through, 
not even the sacred doves which carried the ambrosia to Father 
Jove, but the smooth rock takes away some one of them, and 
then Jove supplies another. One of the rocks reaches to 
heaven with its sharp top, enveloped in cloud; no man can 
ascend this smooth and polished stone. But the fates had 
decreed that they should become "rooted to the deep" when- 
ever a vessel succeeded in passing through them, which feat 
was accomplished by the Argo. As the Argo approached 
the islands they let fly a pigeon, which passed through with 
the loss of its tail, and the Argo followed, which likewise lost 
part of her stern. 

The rocks are the two horns of the moon; they were 
wandering for three days in the dark and submerged in passing 
from one constellation to the next where they were to appear 
as new moon. It describes the tallest one of the rocks or 
moon forks as smooth and reaching to the sky, which is the 
right hand limb of the moon. 

The dove is the white messenger bird from the sun; the 
two planets of the sun and moon are in conjunction, and as 
the sun passes over the moon the black yawning jaws of the 
moon chop off the tail or hinder part of the light which is 



76 THE ANCIENT CITY 

the new moon, the tail of the dove and also the tail of the 
Argo. 

The rocks are now stayed and anchored and the passage 
between them is left open and wide apart between the forks. 

The scene is the same as that of the serpent biting or 
bruising the heel of Adam. 

The time of the year is at the Spring equinox, and the 
Argo, or ark of Noah, is bringing home the golden fleece 
or olive branch; that is the same dove of peace which brought 
rest for Noah. The Argo and the ark of Noah are one and 
the same vessel, the contention of the wandering rocks, like 
that of the Volsung and Niblung, has ceased, and they all 
declare peace for Shilo has come. 

The scene is the same as that of the Sabine women rush- 
ing between the Romans and Sabines, for 'tis holy ground 
alike for the wolf and the lamb and the end of war. 

The legend of the wandering rocks is still further valuable, 
for it shows that the throne of Zeus, like that of Jehovah, is 
upon the moon, for it is the path by which the doves carry 
nectar to Jove. 

Pliny has given a description of the Vandimonian Lake, 
renowned for its floating islands, which one could not fail to 
identify with the moon. He says the Lake is in the form of 
a wheel lying on its side, uniform in its shape. No vessel is 
seen on its waters, for it is a sacred lake. It contains grassy 
islets covered with reeds and rushes which float on its surface. 
(The lake shaped like a wheel is the blue moon lake; the 
reeds and rushes are the dark spots seen on the surface.) 
Again, "Each of these islets has a distinct form and size, and 
all have their edges smoothed off by continually rubbing 
against the shore and against each other. All are equal in 
height and buoyancy, for they sink into a sort of boat with a 
deep keel, which is seen from every side, and there is just 
as much of the islands above as below water." 



THE ANCIENT CITY 77 

The islands described above are the white rings of the 
moon, their edges smooth by constant attrition; each one is 
boat shaped. 

He continues: "At one time these islands are joined to- 
gether like part of the main land; (this is the full moon). At 
another they are driven apart and scattered by the winds; 
(these are the rings scattered during the wane of the moon). 

Sometimes the smaller ones stick to the greater; again all 
are driven together in one spot and add to the land on that side, 
and now here, now there, increase or diminish the surface 
of the lake. 

The water of this lake flows out in a stream which, after 
showing itself for a little space, runs under ground in a cave. 
(It is the last golden ring or stream of the moon which dis- 
appears from the old moon and runs under ground for the 
three dark nights, and then rises in the next constellation as the 
new moon ring.) 

"Anything cast in this stream before it enters the cave 
is carried to the place where it reappears." 

It is the same lost ring or cup which runs on as the moon 
stream or track and reappears in the next constellation as new 
moon, or lost cup after the three dark nights; this it does every 
month until it completes the annual circuit of the Zodiac. 

It was originally a lunar story which has been imported 
from the moon, and naturalized upon the earth and shouldered 
upon the credulity of the age. 



BIRTH AND NUPTIAL ISLAND. 

BIRTH ISLAND. 

Chapter VI. 
Jupiter was born in that island of Crete, and his mother 
retired to the black cave at his birth. Homer was born 



78 THE ANCIENT CITY 

upon the island of Chios; Apollo was born on the island of 
Delos; and these earthly islands were the chosen representa- 
tives of the moon island, and inherited its romantic history. 
The freaks and antics of the moon island brought down and 
domesticated upon its earthly representatives. There Christ 
was born in that little white manger of the moon island. 
The Hindu god Krishna was called "the island born." 
Bacchus at his birth changed by Jupiter to a kid (the sun in 
Capricorn, the winter goat), and transferred to Nysa, an island 
formed by the river Tryton (three in one), there to be reared 
by the nymphs. The place was a lake divided by a ford, 
which is the new moon or ford of lo, dividing the moon sea 
as a causeway, and one of the symbols of Bacchus is an 
equilateral triangle. 

Odyseus was born on this island of Ithaca substituted 
for the moon to which he returned after the Trojan war and 
settled at the Spring equinox. 

Asteria, sister of Latona, flung herself from heaven and 
became the island afterward known as Delos; she was the 
stiller of the moon sea in Spring like the Jonah, like Atahensic, 
and the woman thrown down in the Japan sea and became the 
wife of the moon dragon, who was the sea, and together they 
wed upon the white island. 

The island of Rhodes, in the Aegean Sea, at one time 
submerged by a deluge until the sun saw the maid of the 
island, loved her, and beat back the sea. He then married 
her and she became the mother of seven children, the first 
civilizers of the island. 

It was the Holy Isle where the god Poseidon and Aethra 
met, and where the hero Theseus was begotten. It was the 
wedding of sun and moon in Spring. (Ency. Brit. "Theseus," 
294.) 



THE ANCIENT CITY 79 



NUPTIAL ISLAND. 

At the elopement of Orm and Aslog (in Norse Myth- 
ology), they discovered an island on the third day at evening, 
but could not land until in despair Orm cried upon the name of 
God and made the sign of the cross, when the storm ceased 
and a landing place appeared, which was the fiat or name of 
God, which is the new moon ring or word of life pronounced 
upon the moon desert, which is the key or cross or talisman 
which opened the moon door and raised the white island for 
a landing place — the island of "Luce" or white island. 

They ran away from the island of the last sign or con- 
stellation preceding the Spring festival at the Spring equinox, 
where they were three days trying to land; it is the island or 
moon station of the Spring festival or Gretna Green, the 
wedding island. 

This marriage occurs every year at the Spring festival; 
from the place they leave, it requires three days or three dark 
nights to find the next landing or new moon. 



ISLE OF THE OAK TREE. 

A FINNISH TALE. 
Chapter VII. 

On a stretch of swamp, on an earth knoll, at the far end 
of all the heath, Kaitolainen wept much, the wretched one, 
sorely lamented. 

A sandy ridge grew up there, a secret isle formed itself 
by spells; from it a sandy mountain arose, a golden hillock 
raised itself, where the three seas had rubbed, where the waves 



80 THE ANCIENT CITY 

had swept along, four maidens found a sapling oak, carried 
it to a border of a sandy isle — from it grew an awful tree, 
a mighty oak shot up. 

The swamp is the moon marsh, and it is at the far end 
of the heath or border of the moon where the three waves or 
seas swept in a delta a sandy ridge, a triangle formed by 
magic spells — and the four maidens are the four seasons who 
plant the oak, "The Tree of Life," in the sandy isle. 

In Lake Titicaca there is an island of the same name. 
The name means Tiger rock, and according to their tradition 
before the arrival of man the island was inhabited by a tiger 
which carried upon its head a ruby, and by its light the whole 
lake was illumined — it was a sacred island. 

The ruby on the head of the tiger is the new moon; it 
corresponds to the jewel on the head of the serpent in other 
tales. 

There Manco, Capac and Oello, the children of the sun 
were born, and became the ancestors of the Peruvian Incas. 

The most ancient temple of the sun among the Peruvians 
was in the Island of Titicaca, where are found the remains of 
a higher civilization than at Palenque. 

It was that island mountain where Sinbad's ship went to 
pieces; that mountain of loadstone which drew the nails out 
of the ship. The foot of the mountain was covered with 
wrecks and heaps of human bones, and precious treasures, 
and the stones of this mountain were of crystal and rubies. 

The nails drawn out of the ship are the silver nails or 
rings by which the moon ship is nailed together, and one by 
one they are drawn out as the moon wanes toward conjunc- 
tion with the sun, when the last nail disappears and the moon 
ship has fallen in pieces. 

(Dascent Norse Tales: Tale of the Blue Belt). "Came 
a bird flying with an island in its claws, and let fall on the 
fleet and sank all the ships." 



THE ANCIENT CITY 81 



THE ISLAND OF HELIGOLAND AND THE 
FRISIAN LAW. 

Chapter VIII. 

Twelve of their wisest men were chosen by the Frisians 
to compile a code of laws, and after collecting all the tribal 
laws of their nation, they selected an island of the sea to hold 
council. But the vessel was driven far out to sea by a tempest 
by which they lost their bearings and cried upon Forseti (the 
god of the judicial assembly and of eternal law), when they 
suddenly perceived a thirteenth man in the boat who seized 
the rudder and brought the vessel to an island and disem- 
barked when they saw the stranger fling his battle axe to a 
distance, and where the axe fell a fountain gushed forth, and 
there the stranger expounded a code of laws and then vanished. 
And they all exclaimed alike that Forseti himself had been 
among them. And the island was called Heligoland, or the 
Holy Land, and the water of that fountain became sacred 
to man and beast, and there was founded their future seat 
of learning. 

The axe or blade thrown was the sword of the sun 
or the new moon of the Spring equinox thrown upon the 
shore of the black moon; and that new moon is the divine 
wisdom, the word of light and knowledge, and that thirteenth 
man in the boat is the thirteenth moon, or month which com- 
pletes the lunar year. 



82 THE ANCIENT CITY 



BATTLE ISLAND. 

Chapter IX. 

Light and life were born in the moon island, and there 
the sunlight returns to die. It was the annual battle fought 
every year at Spring and Fall — in the Spring the moon king 
was vanquished as a serpent or giant, and in the Autumn the 
sun-king was slain, and all these battles took place on the 
moon island. 

In the Northern Mythology it was there Volsung fell, 
and there Sigmund, his son, fell in the battle of the Holm- 
gang, or the "Isle meeting," where he fought with King Lingi 
(the Isle King) for the hand of Hiordis the fair. (Lingi is 
Hades, and Hiordis answers to Proserpine). She is the Hero- 
dias who demanded the head of John the Baptist. (Matthew 
14:3-10). The Delilah. 

Sigmund came from far over the sea to fight him, for 
Sigmund's kingdom is in the East, the constellation of Spring, 
and Lingi holds the West — it was fought at the close of 
Summer. 

"On went the Volsung banners and on went Sigmund before, 
And his sword was the flail of the tiller on the wheat of the 

wheat-threshing floor." 
"But his shield was rent from his arm and his helm was sheared 

from his head, 
But who may draw nigh him to smite for the heap and the 

rampart of dead." —(Sigurd the Volsung, p. 60), 

The last great battle of the gods at Ragnarok (the Norse 
millenium) is to be fought on the island. 

When Sigurd had given the death wound to Fafnir (Hades 
masked as a man serpent) he told Sigurd they would have 
their last battle on that island. 



THE ANCIENT CITY 83 

"Oh Fafnir what of the isle and what hast thou known of its 

name, 
Where the gods shall mingle edges with Surt and the sons 

of flame." 
"O child! O strong compeller! Unshapen is it hight, 
There the fallow blades shall be shaken and the dark and the 

day shall smite; 
When the Bridge of the Gods is broken and their white steeds 

swim the sea, 
And the uttermost field is stricken last strife of you and me." 

(Sigurd the Volsung: B. Regin, p. 126). 



THE ISLE OF THE HEREAFTER 

OR 

THE ISLAND OF SOULS 

Chapter X. 

The White Island of the West, the sunset island, is the 
ring of the after summer moon, the land of birth and of death, 
the beginning and end of all things. 

The Greek writers refer to the Island of Leuce, the "White 
Island of the West." It lay in the Euxine at the mouth of the 
river Dnieper, an Elysian field; it was given to Achilles by 
Thetis; there Achilles and Helen were married. After death 
the island was still inhabited by his ghost. 

The White Island of the West occurs in the Hindu Myth- 
ology. Krishna dwells in the "holy White Island of the 
West." This island contains the water of immortality; it never 
decays, but lives on preserving the seed of life throughout all 
changes and wrecks of other worlds. 



84 THE ANCIENT CITY 

The tomb of the Egyptian god Osiris was shown on the 
sacred island of Philae in the river Nile; it was called the "Holy 
Field." 

There his votaries filled three hundred and sixty bowls of 
milk daily to Osiris, one for each day of the year. 

The Egyptian dead entered upon an island in the eternal 
city; they have left us Vignettes of the departed souls attending 
to their varied industries in the Archipelago of "Ialu" the "field 
of reeds." (Maspero: 192.) 

With the Greeks these Isles of the Blest were beside the 
"deep eddying ocean." (Hesiod: Works and Days, 
162-77.) 

The fairies were supposed to have subterranean galleries 
under the sea which communicated with the main land, for 
the bright world of the moon was seen to rise above the waters 
and then sink, and from this an underworld was suggested, a 
bright land under the waves. This was Mother Holly's green 
meadow or orchard under the sea. 

The Ultima Thule was an island at the uttermost ex- 
tremity of the world. It was a floating, shifting island that lay 
beneath the waves of the sea sometimes called "Land under 
the Waves"; it sometimes rises to the surface. It enjoys per- 
petual summer and perennial verdue and fruits; its coast was 
surrounded on one side by a wall of rock in which the griffin 
built her nest. It was a magic island; its inhabitants were 
magicians; its fruits possessed the power of life and death; its 
waters healed; it was visited by magic or charm stones carried 
on the wings of eagles or griffins. (Waifs and Strays of 
Celtic Tradition.) 

Quetzalcoatl the Toltec, civilizer after a reign of peace in 
the Golden Age, retired to the sea pursued by his persecutor 
and avenger, and there embarked in a vessel made of serpent 
skins bound for the sacred Isle of Tlapallan. 

Hasisadra, the Babylonian Noah, lived in a charmed island, 



THE ANCIENT CITY 85 

an Elysian field at the mouth of a river; there he received and 
healed the hero Gilgames. (Maspero: 585.) 

When St. Patrick was about to die, directed by a heavenly 
messenger, he gave orders that his body should be placed in 
a cart to which two young oxen of the herds of Conall should 
be yoked, and left to find their own way, and wherever they 
chose to stop there he should be buried. (Like the cows sent 
back with the ark of Israel from the land of the Philistines left 
to find their own way to the land of Canaan.) 

The Norsemen sent their dead in a lighted ship to find 
their way to the land of rest. The ship is the moon, lit by 
that pillar of fire that guided Israel to the promised land. 

The Kingdom of Tuoni, the realm of the departed, was 
on the Isle of the hereafter. (Kalevala: Rune 4, p. 58.) 

The holy island of the "adder stone" and the island of 
the "strong door" where the twilight and pitchy darkness are 
mingled together. ("Song of Taliesin" — Davies' Mythology, 
British Druids, pp. 164, 165.) 

The earth to all the ancients was a great island. In the 
Homeric Mythology the Elysian fields lay on the western 
margin of the earth by the stream of the ocean and also called 
Isles of the Blessed, and by the poets Elysian, but in later 
times were moved down to the lower world. 

The Celtic Tirfaton, the land beneath the waves, and the 
Irish Tir-na-nog, the land of youth, and Moy-mell, the plain 
of honey. These islands were inhabited by the fairies and 
peopled by the Shee (fairy women) ; their country was far 
out in the Atlantic under the waves. 

In Gaelic Tir-fa-ton, the land beneath the waves, en- 
chanted islands sunk in the sea under a spell, but sometimes 
seen above the sea every seven years, but would be free from 
the spell and remain permanently above water if anyone could 
succeed in throwing fire upon them. 



86 THE ANCIENT CITY 

They are the moon island, like Delos, sunken during the 
period of winter — the seven months. 

Eden is described as the little white island of the new 
moon of Easter in Spring, but in after summer becomes the 
sunset isle of the west; they both become stationary isles just 
hidden from view. 



THE ISLAND OF EDEN. 

Chapter XL 

That island at the mouth of the river was the Garden 
of Eden, planted in the desert of the moon, for the first dwell- 
ing of Adam. It is every year accursed, often sunken, and 
then raised again for a land of refuge. There Cain fled after 
he killed his brother to the land of Nod, the land of "outcasts" 
and "vagabonds." There Moses fled after he killed the Egyp- 
tian, his brother. 

It was the temple to which all murderers and those in 
peril fled for protection; that Kalevala, "the land of heroes," 
the land of culture heroes, where the first civilization was born. 

These fabulous islands were as firmly rooted in belief as 
witchcraft and divination. And the seas, lakes and oceans 
everywhere were spotted with these imaginary isles of refuge, 
for the persecuted or the shades of the departed. 

They were the theme of poets and romancers down through 
the Middle Ages, and even to our own time ; sometimes hidden 
under the waves and seen in shadowy form; again visible and 
visited at rare intervals, and gorgeously portrayed by naviga- 
tors. (Not very reliable.) 

For ages they clung to their old moorings with rare valor 



THE ANCIENT CITY 87 

and hardihood, and even after their imaginary foundations 
had been ploughed up or sunken by the keels of adventurous 
mariners, they would reappear in some new retreat less exposed 
to view, as migratory as their lunar prototype. 

So enchanting was the belief in their existence that after 
all research had failed, it was held by some in the credulity 
of their age that the islands were rendered invisible to mortals 
by magic like the Holy Grail, and that none but the pure 
in heart were able to behold them. 

But the great commercial enterprise of modern times and 
the cruel despotism of truth has denied them at last a resting 
place in the sea, for they were a delicious dream for languor — ■ 
a haven of rest for the weary — "over there." Hereafter they 
can exist only in the boundless sky beyond the reach of navi- 
gation or the vista of the telescope. 



PART SIXTH. 

THE CULTURE HERO AND ORIGIN 
OF CIVILIZATION. 

TALISMAN, CHARM, PROTECTOR, AND 
TOTEM POLE. 

Chapter I. 

The sun and moon were in constant sympathy, living and 
dying alternately. The moon was the mirror of the sun, the 
other self, which always went on before the sun in his journey 
like the friendly dog and the faithful Luxman to Rama, and 
stopped every month and held secret council in the darkened 
chamber of the moon. 

And that mysterious nature existing between the sun and 
moon was brought down to earth and originated totemism, the 
friendship and brotherhood between man and sympathetic ani- 
mals, as taught by the sun and moon, and underlies the totem- 
istic animal worship of the ancient world, more especially that 
of the Egyptians. 

That totem pole of the North American Indians is the same 
pole or pillar set up by Jacob on his journey from Beer-sheba 
to Haran, a covenant pole at Bethel or Luz, the city of light, 
and there he took on god the sun for a companion, helper, and 
friend. (Genesis 28:18.) And that pole is the pillar of the 
new moon, the chief pillar of God's temple whose two arms 



THE ANCIENT CITY 89 

twine around the Throne of God; that chief pillar around 
which the ancient religions centre from the age of savagery to 
the present time. 

And the moon, the faithful friend and companion of the 
sun was represented by the dog, the faithful friend of man; 
and the moon shed the dew and the fertilizing rain, the milk 
of heaven, and for this reason she was likened to a cow, and 
the cow was worshipped as her living representative on earth, 

And as the sun and moon were ancestors of mankind, their 
living representatives on earth became ancestors, and received 
the same homage and worship as their prototypes, the sun 
and moon. And originated the Manes worship or the worship 
of dead ancestors — calling up the departed spirits of the dead, 
as Ulysses performed sacrifice, and brought forth the shades of 
Agamemnon and Achilles. And as the witch of Endor raised 
the ghost of Samuel for Saul; and Odin called by magic rune 
songs the ghost of the old giantess to prophecy. And all these 
dead called up are the dark dead moon awakened from slumber 
when the soul awakes, as seen in the ring of light we call the 
new moon. 

It originated the talisman, a magical figure of the moon, 
or a heavenly sign as a planet or star, or constellation engraved 
upon a sympathetic stone or metal, and was worn to avert 
evil disease or death, and supposed to wield the same power 
and influence as the original, as our cross worn upon the person 
which is that of the moon worn as an amulet and protector, as 
the bell in the church steeple, a charm or spell to drive away 
evil spirits. 

Saints were buried in the crypt of the church and temples 
were dedicated to saints as guardians. Stone Henge is the 
tomb of Pendragon, who fell in a great battle between Britons 
and Saxons. The head of Bendigeid Vran was buried under 
the White Mount in London as a charm against invasion. 

According to Ovid the sacred fire of Vesta at Rome was 



9 o ' THE ANCIENT CITY 

kept burning throughout the year on the circular fireplace; 
this fire was brought from Troy, and upon this hung the fate 
of the city. 

It was the Tutelary god of the city — the St. George to 
England, the St. Denis to France, the St. Joseph to Spain. 

A talisman, pearl of great price ; the Shamir stone of Solo- 
mon. The talisman, no matter what its name or form, is the 
new moon, that protector, that sword of light which frightened 
away the dark and evil things — it was the sword of Eden. 
For the moon was the mirror of the sun, the other self. 

The statue of Diana which Orestes brought back from the 
Tauric Chersonese to Argos; Jacob took the household gods, 
the Penates, which are the twin forks of the moon, the Tera- 
phim, with him to his new settlement. These Teraphim were 
consulted as household gods. Dardanus took the Penates from 
Samothrace to Troy, and after the destruction of Troy Aeneas 
brought them to Lavinium, which city he was fabled to have 
founded in Italy. 

The Penates or household gods are the twin forks of the 
moon, which were taken from the old city of the moon every 
year and carried to the new city of the Spring equinox. 

It is the black stone of the Caaba of the Temple of Mecca, 
which had fallen from heaven for a protector. It was carried 
off by the Carmathians and not restored until twenty-two years 
after, and then only for a great ransom. The black stone rep- 
resented the black moon, a meteorolite, which had fallen from 
heaven. 

The Lares and Penates — gods of inferior power at Rome, 
were of many classes, who watch over cities, houses, and cross- 
ways, and of various rank; spirits of ancestors who watch over 
the safety and prosperity of individuals, whom families honored 
at the hearth and chapel, and a watchdog became their natural 
symbol. 



THE ANCIENT CITY 91 



AUGURIES. 

THE PILLAR AND GUIDE OF THE EXODUS, 

SIGNS AND PORTENTS OBSERVED 

IN EMIGRATION, AND THE 

FOUNDING OF CITIES. 

Chapter II. 

Colonies were led out in the olden time in obedience to 
prophecy, and their prophet and oracle was the moon, and 
their cities were laid out astronomically and astrologically. 

They determined by auguries from the heavenly spheres, 
by wind and clouds and smoke, and visible phenomena, prac- 
tised incantations and prophesied. 

It was the new moon, the omen stick; that lighthouse 
that guides the mariner to his destined abode. 

The site of the city was made known by signs and por- 
tents — a shield or an Ate thrown down from heaven to mark 
the site of Troy, or the golden wedge thrown down to the 
Peruvians to mark the site of Cuzco, their sacred city, which 
is the new moon of the Spring equinox. 

The moon became the leader and guide in all emigrations — 
that moon with its pillar of fire which led Israel to the promised 
land of the Spring equinox (which originally required but 
three days). That Aaron, the speech friend of Moses, who 
went before with the pillar of fire, without which Moses the sun 
did not dare to venture, for Aaron was the pillar of the fire, the 
priest of the altar, the Melchizedek, the mast of the moon 
boat — that was the ark that led Israel from Egypt back to 



92 THE ANCIENT CITY 

Canaan, the promised land, with the bones of Jacob for a pilot. 
(Genesis: Ch. 50). That pillar of the new moon which 
always goes before the sun on her monthly journey, was the 
pillar of the speaking oak in the prow of the Argo, and the 
pillar of the ship of old Wainamoinen, the Finland Noah, 
which was built of three magic words — which is the new 
moon ring built of three rings — one ring for each of the three 
dark nights. 

The gods charged certain animals to guide the colonists 
on their way. Among the Sabine colonists sent out, one was 
guided by a woodpecker into Picenum, another by an ox into 
the land of the Opici. The Hirpini of Italy were guided by a 
wolf, the same winter wolf that suckled the Roman twins. 

With the ancient Peruvians the divine Manco Capac and 
Mama Oello Huaco, the children of the sun, taught the arts 
and sciences of civilized life. They were first seen to advance 
along the high plains in the neighborhood of Lake Titicaca, 
and bore with them a golden wedge, and directed their follow- 
ers to take up their abode wherever the sacred treasure should 
sink in the ground; and the wedge sank in the valley of Cuzco 
and disappeared forever. The wedge is the new moon of the 
Spring equinox which splits the black moon at Easter. The 
Baal-peor, the opener, the same wedge of the Norse creation, 
that split the moon at Ginungagap. To this sacred city of 
Cuzco the Peruvian made his pilgrimage as the Mahomedan 
does to Mecca and the Christian to Jerusalem. 

Viracocha was a generic name of divinity and given to 
Manco Capac — this name, according to Prescott, signifies 
"Foam of the Sea," or lake, and in the ancient native legends 
it was said that he had neither flesh nor bone; a swift runner, 
he leveled mountains and drained marshes. 

Antinoe, the daughter of Cepheus, the son of Aleus, built 
the town of Mantinea in obedience to an oracle, and made a 
serpent her guide, and that is why the river which flows by 



THE ANCIENT CITY 93 

the town was called Ophis (serpent), but according to the 
Iliad of Homer, it was a dragon. (Pausanias: Book 8, 
Ch. 8). 

The town of her dream was the new moon of the Spring 
equinox. Antinoe is the moon of the old year now fallen 
asleep for the three dark nights; she is dreaming of her future 
home in the next constellation in which she will awake on the 
third night as the new moon mistress. 

Alexander, the son of Philip, built the modern Smyrna in 
consequence of a dream under a plane tree growing in the 
water in front of the temple of Nemesis, who directed him to 
build a town on that site. (Pausanias: Book 7, Ch. 5). 

This is the same dream the savage had to interview his 
protecting totem, or guardian spirit ; the same dream of Abraham 
and Nebuchadnezzar, and Pharaoh; it is the same inebriate 
sleep of Noah. The sun falling asleep on the dark moon 
for three nights, and the moon will give no answer to his dream 
until the third night, when it will be revealed by the new moon 
from which no secrets can be hidden. 



FOUNDING OF LONGA ALBA. 

Aeneas was told by an oracle that his colony should be 
guided by a pregnant sow designed for sacrifice, which should 
break loose and escape to the bushes on a fruitful eminence, 
and that eminence was Longa Alba, named after its prototype 
the long white ring of the new moon. 

The Norsemen forced from home by the persecution of 
Harald Fairfax in the year 874, embarked for Iceland carry- 
ing their carved door-posts with them ; they were thrown over- 
board in the sea as they neared the shores, and where they 
were landed by the waves on the coast, there they settled. 
These were their household gods which drifted and marked 
out their place of settlement. They were the twin posts of the 



94 THE ANCIENT CITY 

new moon of Spring, the same which Rachel stole from her 
father Laban, the same carved totem pole of the Pacific Coast 
Indians. 

In the tragedy of Electra (Euripides) Orestes was warned 
by the gods to flee to the altar of Minerva where he would be 
safe from the Furies — "where votes being placed equal will 
preserve thee" and "hereafter the law shall be fixed that the 
defendant shall always escape by equal votes — for thee it 
behooves to dwell in a city on the streams of Alpheus (Aleph 
the ox) near the Lycaean enclosure." 

It is the city of the Spring equinox in the sign of Taurus 
the ox, the dividing line between the two houses of north and 
south, or summer and winter — each house would cast six 
votes, and the verdict would result in a tie or aquittal. 

Where Apollo slew the serpent at Delphi, there arose a 
torrent of water. And when Cadmus slew the serpent on the 
site of Thebes, there arose a fountain of water ; he was obliged 
to have that water to perform sacrifice, and we find the same 
serpent in the Hindu Mythology, where Indra slew the serpent 
Vritra for withholding the waters, and the serpent is the black 
winter moon pierced with the sword of light. 

AUGURIES. 

The moon went before to show the route as the standard 
bearer, and determined the omens. 

In the Aztec Exodus (Bancroft Pacific Coast Indians, 
Vol. 5, pp. 326, 327) — The skull and cross-bones of Huitziton 
the high priest, directed his followers to the chosen land of 
promise; his bones were carried in an urn or ark on the 
shoulders of four priests ("God bearers") and through these 
priests the god should make known his will to his people. (The 
skull was the black moon, and the cross-bones are the two 
forks of the new moon). 



THE ANCIENT CITY 95 

Dardanus took the Penates from Samothrace to Troy, and 
after the destruction of Troy Aeneas brought them to Italy 
and set them up at Lavinium, a city of Latium; they were 
patron divinities — the public Lares; they were the guardians of 
the state, and in substance the sun and moon; consequently 
ancestors. We know just what they are for Rachel (the moon 
and wife of Jacob) hid them under the camel's gear and sat 
upon them. It was at the conjunction of sun and moon, and 
the two forks of the new moon were concealed under the black 
pall of the moon; they could only be hidden for three days — 
on the third night they appear as new moon from under the 
camel's harness, which is Rachel (the black moon) sitting 
upon the two forks of the new moon ring. They are carried 
by emigrants in their Exodus; they go before as cloud and 
pillar of fire, for the Israelites; they are the only two to cross 
the ford and enter Canaan, the Joshua (sun) and Caleb (the 
moon dog). 

The Palladium or statue of Minerva (moon) was thrown 
to earth and fell in Trojan territory, and Ilus placed it in a 
temple, and upon that talisman depended the safety of the city; 
it was stolen from Troy by the Greeks and Troy fell. It was 
the light of the moon temple, the luck of "Eden Hall"; the 
wisdom tree of Eden stolen through Eve and the serpent. It 
was the totem tree or moon pillar Jehovah (the sun) set up at 
parting from Eden, the garden of the east, when he left, and 
appointed Eve its guardian, for when the tree failed his own 
strength would fail, for it was his own image, his shadow and 
other self. 

This tutelar image of the new moon was kept in most 
ancient cities as sacred, upon which the safety of the city de- 
pended; at Rome, not even the pontifex maximus was allowed 
to behold it. 

The Carthagenians, when digging a foundation for their 
city, dug up the head of a horse which was considered a favor- 



96 THE ANCIENT CITY 

able augury, and the head of the horse was the new moon ring. 

It was said that in digging the foundation of the temple 
of Jupiter Capitolinus, that a human head was found still un- 
decayed, and trickling with blood, a sign that this place was 
destined to become the head of the world. (Niebuhr 1, 490). 

It is the black head of the moon trickling with the blood 
of the new moon, which was the building site for the sacred 
city founded in blood, common to all Mythologies. 



DESCENT FROM THE GODS. 

Chapter III. 

Of old kings and nations were vain of their celestial origin, 
and traced their descent from the gods and solar heroes ; showed 
their graves and their foot prints, the cities they had founded, 
and the walls and columns they had raised. 

"I am Assurbanipal, descendant of the god Assur and 
Beltis, the son of the great king of Eriduti, whom Assur and 
Sin, the lord of crowns, from distant days, the account of his 
name prophesied to the kingdom." (From a cylinder in the 
British Museum.) 

The Chaldeans traced their descent from the moon-god. 
The city of Ur was dedicated to the moon-god, and the moon- 
god in their system was father of the sun-god. (Sayce: 
p. 149.) 

The Jews trace their descent from their god through fabu- 
lous heroes and mythical chronologies. 

The royal house of Tyre claimed descent from the Tyrian 
Baal. The royal families of Hellas were descended from Zeus 
and the Romans from Jupiter. 



THE ANCIENT CITY 97 

The Anglo-Saxon royal families trace their descent from 
Wodan; and all the ancient nations and tribes of importance 
prefaced their early history with a heroic age of marvelous 
achievements. 

But it is now known that the highest type of human intelli- 
gence of to-day is but a cultivated savage, whose remote an- 
cestor was but a cave dweller, and a bone-gnawing cannibal. 



EPONYMOUS HEROES. 

Chapter IV. 

The Greeks were pre-eminent for inventing eponymous or 
personal names to account for the name of a country. As: 

Hellen, the founder of the Hellenes; 

Cilix, who gave his name to Cilicia ; 

Pelops to Peloponesus; 

Phoenix, who established himself at Phoenicia; 

The Lydians derive their name from Lydus ; 

Pelasgians from their founder Pelasgiis; 

Dorians from Dorus; 

Aeolians from Aeolus; 

Ionians from Ion; 

Romans from Romulus; 

Latins from Latinus. 

And all these are but mythical names called into existence 
by assonance to account for the name of a country or people. 

As there was an Aram invented for the Arameans, and a 
Canaan for the Canaanites; an Italus for Italy, and a Brutus 
for Britain. 



98 THE ANCIENT CITY 



MOUNTAIN REVELATION, 

OR 

THE WISE MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN. 

Chapter V. 

The first seat of the Aryan race was on Mt. Alborg, which 
is Al-burg (God's city). 

The Accadians of Babylonia traced their origin to the 
mountains southwest of the Caspian sea — the "mountains of 
the East." There arose Nisir, the "mountain of the world" — 
their primitive home and the cradle of the human race. 

We have a like origin of the Sumerian civilization, who 
in tradition were said to have brought down from the moun- 
tains a system of writing to lower Babylonia, which was trans- 
formed and modified into the Cuneiform, or wedge letter writ- 
ing, and in time adopted by ten different nations. (Maspero: 
p. 550, and King 1910). These Sumerians had oblique eyes, 
of Mongol type. 

There was Mt. Meru of the Hindu on which was situated 
Swarga, the heaven of Indra; it contained the cities of the 
gods and celestial spirits, the Olympus of the Hindus; its 
earthly representative lay north of the Himalayas. It was 
called "Golden Mountain," "Jewel Peak," "Lotus Moun- 
tain" and "Mountain of the Gods." 

In ancient belief civilization first began in the moon and 
came down from the moon mountain to the earth. Prome- 
theus, the civilizer of Greece, came down from the moon with 
that horn of light (the new moon) which he had wrenched 
from the sun — he was a Titan, and brought fire to man. Great 
civilizers and culture heroes came down from the moon; they 
.are generally half savage and clothed in skin; semi-monsters, 



THE ANCIENT CITY 99 

for the moon was half white and half black, a shaggy monster 
that dwelt at the mountain pass. 

The Babylonian Eabani was one of them, the wise man 
called down to help the Babylonians in travail; he dwelt at 
the water trough of the moon and drank with the beasts; he 
had the horns of a goat and the legs and tail of a bull, but he 
was a wise being and knew all things, past, present and future. 

Chiron, the kentaur, was one of these wise men; he lived 
in the cave of the moon and was half horse and half man, and 
taught the young solar heroes and educated Hercules, Achilles, 
Aesculapius and Jason — he was their uncle, the moon. Or he 
was Pan, the mountain shepherd, goat-formed, and identified 
with the goat-formed Mendes of Egypt. Or as an old bald- 
man of the desert places — like Elijah and Elisha (II Kings, 
2:23), or in Christian times a John the Baptist, covered with 
hair and feeding upon grasshoppers and wood honey. 

For the moon was the culture hero, the wise man who took 
all forms, as beast, bird and fish, and was brought down to 
civilize and educate the nations of the earth. For he was 
the great prophet and priest, and came originally out of the 
moon sea as that ring of light, as an Oannes for the Baby- 
lonians; he was born of water; he was the classical Proteus, 
Nereus, and Phorcys, the "sea elders" and servants of Nep- 
tune. And he was the Jonah, the preacher, who came out of 
the sea to preach to the Ninevites; he was the wise man, the 
helper and friend. 

In the old time the moon was a fire-smith, and kept the 
moon forge, and manufactured swords, and appears in the old 
Norse Saga as Regin the smith, the "Master of Masters"; 
he educated the young solar hero Sigurd the Volsung, for he 
was uncle to Sigurd, for he was the brother to his mother. 
He is the same as Wailand the smith, but later as the gods were 
promoted, the old blacksmith became with the Greeks an 
Hephaestus, the Olympian artist. 



ioo THE ANCIENT CITY 

Colonies were led down from the moon mountain following 
the course of the celestial river, as Noah led his family down 
from the ark mountain. 

The colony of the historic Odin came from the same place, 
the mountain of the east and the river Tanais, or serpent river 
on the boundary line between Europe and Asia, even as Abra- 
ham had to come from the east and cross the river Jordan, and 
Jason the Grecian settler of Iolcos had to cross the river 
Enipeus. 

Minos, king of Crete, the law giver, received his law from 
Mount Dicte, the dictator or speech mountain upon the island 
of Crete, a high mountain covered with snow the greater part 
of the year. 

Tuisco or Teut, according to Tacitus, the founder of the 
ancient Germanic nation, was a gray-bearded man with bare 
head and covered with the skin of an animal; and the three 
principal tribes of the Germans are descended from his son 
Mannus. 

The German ancestor Mannus was the son of the German 
god Tuiston, and from this stem, Tuiston was derived Teu- 
tones, and the Teuton and the above Mannus is from the root 
"man" which heads the Hindu race as Manu and Menes of 
Egypt, and Manus Manu, Minos Mona, all belong to this type, 
and mean as well moon as man, for they were interchangeable 
as the moon was called the moon man. 

Zoroaster received his "book of the law" from a high 
mountain amidst the thunder and lightning revealed by Or- 
muzd as the Zend Avesta, the "living word." 

Mohammed came down from that mountain with his laws 
and precepts written upon shoulder blades. 

Moses, the Hebrew law-giver, received his revelation from 
the same burning mountain Sinai, which is the mountain of the 
moon — Sin "the moon." And the Chinese left the land of 



THE ANCIENT CITY 101 

the "five summits" and the "four canals" and settled in the 
remote east. 

In the Pehlavi (Persian) traditions, Kaiumers, the wise 
man, the first to govern the world, and first to teach men the 
use of fire and implements, descended from a mountain cov- 
ered with the skin of a tiger. All beasts and birds were obe- 
dient to his command and came to his aid in battle. 

Deucalion brought down his new colony from Mt. Par- 
nassus. Noah brought his herd from Mt. Ararat, and the 
Hindu Manu descended from Mt. Meru. 

And this is all rot and rubbish! It is not to our half- 
civilized ancestors we have to go for record and revelation. 
Where would you look for the origin of the civilization of 
Europe to-day? Up in the Alps? — the very last place to re- 
ceive civilization. Where would you look for the origin of the 
high civilization and culture of the Athenians? Up in the 
crags of Olympus, which is even to-day but half civilized? 

Mountain tops in all ages and at the present time show a 
state of society illiterate and uncultured. 

These mistaken notions arose in this way, for the moon 
to them was a holy mountain; the dwelling place of the wise 
man Thoth, and Hermes, and Heabani, and Aaron the priest, 
and Melchizedek; and the mountain from which the mythical 
Moses brought down his law for the Hebrews. 

The moon was the wise man, the speech friend and in- 
terpreter to the sun; it made hieroglyphics and wrote signs 
and symbols and revelations upon the moon table. 

But the moon was too far away, and nearby mountains 
took its place and were stocked with home-made sages like 
Moses, Elijah, and John the Baptist, to utter new laws and doc- 
trines, such as the nation had taught them to proclaim. 

And that is how the ancient Accadians and Sumerians 
have an old tradition that their letters and written characters 
were brought down from the highlands. And this is how our 



102 THE ANCIENT CITY 

high mountain peaks became sacred — a Sinai from Sin (the 
moon); a Nebo, "speech mountain"; Olympus, the heavenly 
mountain. 

And that is how Mt. Helicon became sacred to Apollo, and 
the seat of the Muses, though covered with snow like Par- 
nassus the greater part of the year, and Helicon was in Boeotia, 
and the Boeotians were considered a stupid race by the 
Athenians. 

That is how the wild Thracians brought civilization into 
Greece, when the Thracians were but barbarians themselves, 
for the original Thracian or Pierian tribes dwelt about Helicon 
and Parnassus. (Anthon Class. Die. — Thracia.) 

And on Parnassus was the renowned oracle of Delphi, and 
that is how the wisdom of Eumolpus, Musaeus and Thamyris 
came from Thrace, a wild country which spoke a barbarian 
language even in the time of cultured Greece. 

There lived Orpheus, the great healer, soothsayer and en- 
chanter, who dwelt in a cavern — Orpheus, the founder of the 
mysteries — Orpheus the harper, at the sound of whose lyre 
the rocks and the trees swayed to and fro and the wild beast 
left his lair. The Orpheus torn in pieces while his harp sang 
his death song, floating down to the sea. 



GUIDE AND LEADER OF CIVILIZATION. 

Chapter VI. 

"When ye see the ark of the covenant of the Lord moving, 
then ye shall remove from your place and go after it" (Josh. 
3:3), and when they crossed the Jordan the waters were 
divided. 

And that is the path of the new moon ring seen cut through 



THE ANCIENT CITY 103 

the black waters of the old black moon sea of which the 
Jordan is its chosen representative. 

Moses was not allowed to go over the Jordan; the only 
one to cross that river was the new Spring leader, the Spring 
prince, like Abraham of old, one from beyond the river, the 
Jason who leaped the ford, the Joshua or new born sun of 
Spring who had been guided all the way there by that "leaning 
pole," that pillar of light, the new moon, — he is himself the 
pillar, for Moses, the king of the old year, is dead. 

The moon leads the way in all pilgrimages to new set- 
tlements ; it was the pillar of cloud by day, or a dark moon, but 
was a pillar of fire by night, and when it arrived at the meet- 
ing or chosen place it stopped and pitched camp — that was 
sacred ground, for there the new city was to be built. 

The foundation of the Dodonean oracle was established 
by a black pigeon which had fled from Thebes in Egypt and 
uttered its prophecy upon the oaks of Dodona. 

That is the purple dove, the purple moon that brought the 
news to Noah on the third day. 

These friendly animals divinely appointed to lead the emi- 
grant to his place of settlement as beast, bird, bull, cow, bear, 
fish, pole, or image, and all animate and inanimate things, are 
but the one and the same thing — the moon, the great leader, 
who under symbolic names indicates the stopping place by 
standing still. 

These animals are sent as guides to lead the emigrants 
to their new home and locate the site of cities, churches and 
monasteries. 

The Opicians were led by a bull which draws the golden 
furrow of the new moon. 

The Aryan settlers of India had an antelope for their 
leader and guide ; and the Brahmans of India still wear its skin, 
and the god Krishna was called the "black antelope." 

The deceased Egyptian armed with the Phylacteries, and 



io 4 THE ANCIENT CITY 

muttering incantations as protectors, went westward over the 
desert guided by a friendly bird or praying mantis to seek the 
"field of reeds" — crossed the desert infested with serpents and 
ferocious beasts, and ascended the mountain which surrounded 
the world sometimes carried up by the cow Hathor. 

Battus followed the raven to found Cyrene; Cadmus fol- 
lowed the cow to found Thebes; the Hirpini followed the 
track of a wolf, and a woodpecker led the Sabines. 

Perseus founded Mycenae, for here the scabbard of his 
sword fell off. (Pausanias : 11, 16). 

In the Chichimec period there occurred a division of the 
Aztecs into Mexicans and Tlatelulcas — a quarrel between 
priests and nobles, and the nobles were driven out and their 
new location was miraculously pointed out by a whirlwind to 
a sandy spot among the reeds of a lake where were found a 
shield, arrow, and coiled snake, which was considered a most 
favorable augury. (Bancroft: Pacific Coast Indians, Vol. 5, 
p. 357). 

The ancient priestly colonies were led by an oracle, and 
wherever the auguries were favorable they pitched camp, 
raised an altar stone, and established an oracle; and the town 
and city grew around it. 

In a Chocktaw legend a great prophet marched at their 
head and carried a pole which he planted every evening erect 
in front of the camp, and the next morning the pole was always 
seen leaning in the direction they were to proceed that day, 
and after a time they arrived at a mound on Nanih Waiyah 
Creek and encamped for the night, and the pole planted at 
the base of the mound over night stood erect in the morning, 
and they knew by this omen they had reached the promised 
land. 

A dove led the family of Noah's ark to its haven of rest, 
for it was the divine messenger bird and symbol of Spring; 
and a fish conducted the Hindu ark of Manu to the same desti- 



THE ANCIENT CITY 105 

nation, as the dolphin carried Apollo to the seat of his new 
temple at Delphi. And all these symbols represent the same 
moon pillar. Joshua (the sun) and Caleb (the dog) led 
Israel to Canaan, for the moon always goes before the sun as 
the leader and was likened to a dog who goes before his master 
on the journey. 

The moon is the Luxman or faithful friend that guides all 
the exiles home to the east; the moon is seen to proceed before 
the sun and find the promised land, the Shiloh and the garden 
of the east. 



THE AZTEC EMIGRATION. 

The Aztecs traced their origin to Aztlan, and separated at 
the place of the seven caves. (Ency. Brit. "Mexico.") 

They had a renowed captain and leader called Huitziton, 
who conducted them through long and perilous journeys, through 
unknown lands, and when full of years and wisdom was caught 
up to the gods and left his skull and bones as relics to consult 
as to the road they had to follow in search of Anahuac or 
Mexico, their future home. 

The Aztecs, in fulfillment of prophecy, founded their temple 
of Tenochtitlan or "place of the stone cactus" where a cactus 
should be found growing upon a rock and perched upon the 
cactus should be an eagle holding a serpent. 

According to Mr. Bancroft — ("Pacific Coast Indians") — 
Huitzilopochtli was the mythic leader of the Aztecs, the lead- 
ing race of the Nahuan nation, who came from a northern 
country called Aztlan, "the water land." Atl "water"; the 
above leader was a war god and chief deity of the Aztecs, and 
was also called Mexitl, meaning "moon," also "Hare" and 
"Navel" all which are lunar names or symbols. The Arabs 
were called sons of "Hobal"; "sons of the moon" likewise. 

Quetzalcoatl was the god of peace — a tall, white man of 



106 THE ANCIENT CITY 

massive brow and flowing beard; he taught the art of govern- 
ment, and especially instructed the husbandman and silver- 
smith, forbade sacrifice, and offered only bread, roses and per- 
fume. He was the "god of air," but having incurred the enmity 
of another deity, he was forced to leave the country, but in 
his farewell at the shore of departure promised again to return 
to his people. 

Tezcatlipoca rose up against Quetzalcoatl ; he descended 
from the sky on a rope of a spider's web and commenced his 
work of destruction. He came as a handsome youth dressed 
as a merchant selling pepper-pods, and presented himself before 
the princess, the daughter of King Huemac, whom he se- 
duced, and overturned law and order and set up vice and im- 
morality. 

He is the Trojan Paris, the winter moon, the red serpent, 
the red Egyptian Typhon, the long red wing of the winter 
moon, who has come to seduce the Argive Helen, the Proser- 
pine, the Europa, and our Eve of the Summer Garden. 



THE CULTURE HERO AND ORIGIN OF 
CIVILIZATION. 

Chapter VII. 

In the old time a nation could not hold up her head without 
a divine ancestor and a heroic age; it was a national pride and 
glory — an inspiration. 

An Adam as a patron of civilization heads the fabulous 
history of man's beginning and culture among all the early 
people. 

None of the ancients knew their remote origin; they had 



THE ANCIENT CITY 107 

for history ancient songs, heroic tales and tradition. All civil- 
izations have been developed from rude beginnings, and by 
slow degrees, and not by mythical and semi-divine heroes. 

They have come up from the savage through the hunter, 
barbarian, and semi-civilized by long, slow stages of growth. 

But for a written language to record events, it is doubtful 
if even the landing of Columbus, or the settlement of James- 
town colony, would be distinctly remembered to-day. But 
few families have preserved the record of their own ancestors 
for more than three or four generations, and beyond that they 
fall back upon the common mythical "three brothers" or "nine 
partners." 

In regard to their origin, some had fallen from the skies, 
and that the earth was their place of banishment. Others had 
been confined in the earth and crept up through a hole or open- 
ing in the earth toward the light like the children of Saturn, 
swallowed in the moon and crept toward the opening, or first 
ring of light. 

Scarce a tribe but had a tradition of miraculous origin, 
whose ancestors had come over great waters in a ship, or had 
come down from high mountains, or else were autochthonous 
or indigenous — born of their own soil. Or a colony that had 
fled from famine, war, and pestilence. An Aeneas who had 
fled from burning Troy to settle in Latium. A Moses that 
iled from Egypt to lead a colony to Canaan, or the murderer 
Cain to found the first city of the East. 

These nebulous reclaimers from barbarism who came as a 
Cecrops, a Draco, or Prometheus, served as a figure-head on 
which to hang the nation's birth and early civilization, or a 
name to which the beginning of law and order could be at- 
tached. 

These benevolent foreigners who brought seed corn and 
the vine and taught the women to weave, are the sun and moon 
humanized. 



108 THE ANCIENT CITY 

No tribe or race of people has ever civilized until it became 
stationary; barbarous nations of invasion brought no civiliza- 
tion with them, but adopted the civilization of the conquered. 

Man arrives at a higher stage of culture by the enforced 
demands of civilization, which draw out and develop his latent 
capacities. 

The rich, warm river bottoms of semi-tropical coun- 
tries, with their great variety and abundance of food products, 
offered greater inducements for early civilization and sedentary 
life, while the hill country with its light and arid soil was occu- 
pied by roving bands of shepherds. 

And these early seats of Central American, Babylonian 
and Mediterranean occupation were in a far advanced stage, 
while the northern hill and forest ranges were as yet semi- 
barbarous. 

The first inhabitants built in the river marsh, but the higher 
and later civilization burned or hewed the forest. 

Many of the mountain and desert tribes contiguous to the 
Babylonians and Egyptian civilizations were fully equal or su- 
perior to their civilized neighbors in native physical and mental 
power, and possessed in as high degree the germs of civilization, 
but loved better their wild freedom of lawless impulse rather 
than the restraint of civic life. 

There has always been a great reverence for antiquity — 
we have inherited oracles of wisdom — wise, because ancient, 
for time casts a halo over the past and demands reverence; but 
in more recent times people have learned to think for them- 
selves, and we find the further back we go upon the calendar, 
instead of being wise, the less people knew. 

Without a written language and contemporaneous history, 
oral traditions are confused and soon forgotten; and in time 
separate tribes and states are absorbed by larger communities, 
until the original parts are lost in a central government. 

For all nations had come down through Jong ages of 



THE ANCIENT CITY 109 

savage and barbarous life before records were kept, and by 
the time they were called upon for a history, they were obliged 
to fall back upon the legendary tales of heroic ages, the common 
property of all the early nations who had converted gods into 
national heroes and brought them down as ancestors and given 
them birth upon their own soil. Such were Gilgames and 
Heabani for Babylonia; Hercules and Theseus for Greece, 
and Joshua and Samson and Gideon for Canaan. 

For the sun and moon were anthropomorphised, and be- 
came the instructors of the human race and the chief agents in 
the history of social and political development. 

A Hercules was no longer the sun to the Greeks, but a 
pioneer in Greek civilization. Vulcan, the powerful god of 
fire, had become a worker of metals and made armor and war- 
like weapons. 

And as the nations grew in importance they gave themselves 
a high and renowned antiquity and descent from the gods; 
and we find a solar hero at the head of all the ancient royal 
dynasties. And the Greeks in common with other nations 
pretended to have brought a high civilization with them, but 
Thucydides, their most reliable historian, acknowledged him- 
self that the proud nation of the Greeks was at first but a race 
of barbarians. 

The moon in ancient belief was where civilization first 
took place and from thence directed to the earth. The sun met 
in conjunction or conference with the moon at the Spring 
equinox, planted the tree or pillar, dug the well and purified 
the waters which from there descended to the earth to restore 
vegetation. This was the wedding of sun and moon in Spring, 
and also of the earth, and this was the oiginal civilizer, bene- 
factor, and culture hero who has appeared in the early history 
among all civilized nations as a hero and demigod, a Prome- 
theus for Greece, a Kaiumers for Persia, an Adam for the 
Jews. 



no THE ANCIENT CITY 

The moon in legend was a morass subject to overflow, and 
her atmosphere impure when left to herself, and sometimes 
represented as a wilderness or forest of wild beasts, which every 
winter broke from the rule and restraint of the sun, and which 
every Spring the sun as soon as he had acquired sufficient 
strength as a Hercules, cleansed the Augean stables, or like 
Christ, purged the Temple, overturned the seats and drove out 
the money-changers ; or a Ulysses, who drove out the horde of 
winter vagabonds on his return to Ithaca. 

Hu the great led the Gallic race from Asia to western 
Europe; he was a warrior, legislator, priest and magician. 

Odin or Wodan, chief deity of Scandinavia and North 
Germany, led a colony from the border of Asia and brought 
with him a rudimentary civilization and the Runic alphabet. 

These leaders are incarnations of the solar energy, or a 
portion of divine essence embodied in human or supernatural 
form, as mortal heroes and divine instructors; they are the 
moon as a wise man, or Hermes brought down and located 
upon the earth. 

The Euphratean valley had a Nimrod. The Cretans have 
a law-giver Minos; the Germans have a Mannus. 

The Egyptian Osiris taught agriculture, invented the 
plow and hoe and vine culture; Isis invented the loom together 
with her sister Nephthys. 

There was no worship of the gods before the time of 
Osiris; he appointed offerings, regulated ceremonies and built 
cities. 

Cecrops brought civilization from Sais in Egypt to Athens, 
for it was said "about that time the gods began to dwell among 
men." 

Argos was founded by Danaus, who fled from Egypt with 
fifty daughters — the fifty-two weeks of the year personified. 

Pelops led a colony from Asia Minor, and gave the name 
of Peloponesus to the southern peninsula of Greece. 



THE ANCIENT CITY in 

Cadmus came from Phoenicia and introduced writing and 
the beginning of law and order. 

The Greeks had a Prometheus, the bestower of all knowl- 
edge upon mankind. A Phoroneus who founded and brought 
civilization to Argos. 

Bacchus was said to have come from the east, which has 
caused so many to believe in an Indian origin of the Bacchic 
worship, but "east" refers to the Spring equinox where the 
Spring begins, and not from India. 

We must remember Cadmus came from the east and went 
out at the west. 

And Odin came from the east, and so did Quetzalcoatl, 
none of whom had any knowledge of India. 

And all these were culture heroes and tribal ancestors of 
the heroic age. 



CULTURE HERO. 
AGNI, PROMETHEUS AND THE FIRESTICK. 

Chapter VIII. 

The Agni, the Prometheus, the Pramantha, the Firestick, 
the Magic Wand, the Cross of Christ — all one — the New 
Moon, the Great Redeemer, civilizer and culture hero of all 
nations. 

Of all the phenomena in heaven and earth, there was none 
so strange as the moon — that one of never ending change; it 
sometimes appeared as a burning mountain, again as a dark 
abyss of waters, and again as a white island in a lake, and 
again a verdant lawn, a swamp and morass, or a woodland 
grove; then a city of walls and castles, for the moon was sup- 
posed to be self-luminous. Even late in Roman times Her- 



ii2 THE ANCIENT CITY 

cules was said to ride in the sun and Hermes (the wise man) 
in the moon. 

The moon held a ring of fire — that deathless one that arose 
from the funeral pyre every month on the third day; the moon 
wrote with a pen of fire. 

This new moon ring was the chief of all mysteries from 
the days of savagery; it was called a firestick; in the Hindu 
he was Agni the fire god (Latin Ignis: fire) and was con- 
sidered the mediator between gods and men; he was repre- 
sented with two tusks (the two horns of the moon) and carried 
a flaming javelin. He was said to be born of two pieces of 
wood by friction, for the fire child as soon as born from the 
friction of two sticks was said to have devoured his father and 
mother — that is, consumed the wood. 

Agni was born of the black moon as a log ground by the 
fire wheel of the sun in passing the moon, when the little fire 
child is seen born as the first ring of the moon. 

That firestick or flint knife was the first man of all the 
ancient religions, and called by many names, as rod of life, 
magic wand, that rod of fertility in the hand of Jacob, the rod 
in the hand of Moses, that serpent rod of Mercury, the first 
redeemer and creator of all ages, an Adam of the Hebrews, a 
Prometheus of the Greeks, the first wise man and redeemer 
who stole fire from the sun and brought it down in a ring of 
light. 

And as fire was born by the friction of wood it explains 
the origin of the first human beings from trees. They all have 
the same origin; in the old Norse or Icelandic the two first 
children, Ask and Embla, born of two trees on the shore of 
the sea, are the two forks of the moon on the shore of 
the dark moon waters. They are the same in the Iranian or 
Persian, the same twin forks of the moon born on the Ribas 
tree, which is the black bush of the moon. They are the two 



THE ANCIENT CITY 113 

children seen by the bush in the sign Gemini "the twins" on the 
old star maps. 

Consult Babylonian Religion and Myth by L. W. King 
of British Museum, where Marduk, with the help of Arum, 
created the seed of mankind of the Ushu plant and the Ditti 
plant of the marsh. 



CANNES, THE WISDOM FISH GOD OF 
BABYLON. 

Chapter IX. 

The solar energy was manifested in various forms — some- 
times as a mortal hero for the preservation of mankind, but 
more commonly as a leader in emigration ad civilization. 

In the Hindu the god Vishnu became a fish to save the 
Hindu Manu from the flood. 

Oannes, the Fish God, a half fish man, amphibious, in- 
troduced the art of writing and all learning to the Babylon- 
ians. This being called Oannes — (Ea — the god of the sea) 
retired to the sea every night, and every morning came out on 
the shores of the Persian Gulf which washed the shores of 
southern Babylonia. He appeared for the first time in the 
reign of the first King Aloros. In the third reign he appeared 
as Anudata or law-maker; in the fifth reign as Eneubulos — 
Anu Bel; in the seventh reign as Ano-dakon — Anu Dagon, 
which is the dagon fish god of the Philistines. (Maspero: 
Dawn of Civilization.) 

Again in the Bamboo books of Chinese classics it says: 
"There was a time when the heavens were wrapped in mists 
for three nights, a great fish appeared on the river Loh, and 



ii 4 THE ANCIENT CITY 

the Emperor sacrificed five victims to the fish. And they were 
visited with rain for seven days and nights, and the fish floated 
off to the sea and left a writing." The three nights of dark 
mists were the three dark nights of the moon, whose light the 
sun had obscured, and the writing left is the ring revelation of 
the new moon on the third night. 

Again upon a time a glorious light came forth from the 
river Ho at the decline of day, and a dragon horse appeared 
bearing in his mouth a cuirass with red lines on a green ground, 
and laid it upon the altar and went away. 

And again in after times there was a coming at the de- 
cline of day, and on the banks of the Loh a red light apeared, 
and a tortoise arose from the waters with a writing in red lines 
upon its back, and laid it upon the altar — this was in the reign 
of Yao. 

Again in the reign of Shun, in his fourteenth reign, he 
raised an altar at the Ho, and as the day declined a great light 
appeared, and a yellow dragon issued bearing a scheme upon 
his back in lines of red and green, and laid it upon the altar. 

Again in the time of Yoa, a tall man came from the river 
Ho with a white face and a fish body, and left a chart about 
regulating the water, and returned in the deep. 

Again at the beginning of the Tchou dynasty a red man 
came out from the Loh and gave Liu Shang a writing which 
said: "As a back bone you must assist Tchang." (Baby- 
lonian Record, 1888.) 

And all these writings were from the pen of the new 
moon finger which wrote the doom on the black wall of the 
moon for Daniel in a night vision. (Dan., Ch. 2:19.) 



THE ANCIENT CITY 115 



MANIBOZHO OR MICHABO, THE CULTURE 

HERO, AND THE "GREAT HARE" 

OF THE ALGONQUINS. 

Chapter X. 

The most universal ancestor of New England, whose ex- 
ploits, according to Mr. Brinton, were told from the Carolinas to 
Hudson Bay, was Manibozho the "Great Hare" of the 
Algonquins; a common ancestor, inventor of picture writing, 
and founder of worship, who created the earth from a grain 
of sand brought from the bottom of the sea. 

He was called the "Great White One" and the grandson 
of the moon; his father was the "West Wind" and his mother 
died in giving him birth. His life was a battle with his brother 
the Flint Stone, whom he broke in pieces and scattered over 
the lands, and changed his entrails to fruitful vines. (Brinton: 
Myths of the New World.) 

The flint stone is the dark moon, bored, fractured and 
broken by the sun, even as the Egyptian Osiris, and the Ab~ 
syrtus of the Argonautic expedition were rent in pieces, and 
the entrails of the flint stone or scattered limbs of Absyrtus 
and Osiris are the scattered rings of the moon which become 
the fruitful vines of the summer time. 



WAINAMOINEN, THE WISE AND ANCIENT. 

He is the Wainamoinen, the wise and ancient hero of 
the Finlanders, who sowed grain in the ashes of the forest, 



n6 THT ANCIENT CITY 

burned down by the fire eagle, and then sang a song of en- 
chantment : 

"Rise, O earth from out thy slumber, 
From the slumber-land of ages, 
From my ploughing and my sowing, 
From my skilled and honest labor. 
Ukko, thou O God up yonder, 
Thou that livest high in ether, 
Let the rain fall down from heaven, 
Let the cloudlets drop their honey." 

— (Crawford's Kalevala). 



SUME, THE CULTURE HERO OF BRAZIL. 

Chapter XI. 

Sume was a white man with thick beard, who came across 
the ocean from the direction of the rising sun; had power over 
the elements and commanded the tempest. 

The trees of the forest retired from their place and made 
for him a path; wild animals became tame and crouched at 
his feet. 

Lake and river stood firm under his tread, but at last, 
persecuted like Quetzalcoatl, he retired to the bank of a river 
and left the country, but left the prints of his feet in the rocks 
and the sand of the coast, which are still to be seen. (Ban- 
croft: Pacific Coast Indians, V. 5, p. 24.) 



THE ANCIENT CITY 117 



LEADERS AND CULTURE HEROES OF 
NORTHERN EUROPE. 

Chapter XII. 

The religions of Europe and Asia are but different strata 
of the same religion, not that either grew out of the other, but 
all have been growing from the beginning, side by side, bor- 
rowing and exchanging ideas. 

And Heimdal, Mannus, Halfdan, Scef, Skelfir, Scyld and 
Skjold are virtually one and the same projenitor and original 
patriarch of the royal families of Sweden, Denmark, Saxland 
and England in part. (From Prof. Rydberg.) 

This same leader and civilizer is the Hindu Agni who 
knew all wisdom and all science. (Rig. V. Ill- 1 , 17:X21, 5.) 
He instructed men in religion and sacrifice. (VI, 1,1) born 
in heaven, air and the waters (1, 95, 3). 

He was the divine and holy white god, and has white 
teeth and horns, and all these above are visibly the new moon — 
the first ring of the moon, and the same with Prometheus 
(classic) and Pramantha (Hindu) and the flint knife of the 
Red Man, or the fire stick which was the first ancestor and 
civilizer of man. 

He was Odin, the golden worm that bored down through 
the black cavern of the moon and brought up that ring of fire 
hidden in the cavern of Gunlad the giantess. 

As the Hindu Agni split the moon mountain with his 
tongue and brought forth that ring of life which the Dasyus 
(the dark enemies of the gods) had concealed in the moon 
mountain, which identifies Odin the Norse god with the Hindu 
Agni, the fire god, and they are both the new moon ring of 



n8 THE ANCIENT CITY 

the Spring equinox, which was the fountain of life kept by the 
giant Mimer, from which Odin drank the same divine food, the 
nectar and ambrosia given to Apollo at his birth, and the 
same amrita or water of life churned from the ocean by the 
Hindu gods; that fire produced by the friction of the sun and 
moon as they cross at the Spring ford and strike fire by friction 
and beget the fire child Agni. 

And these are all tales of the year, the opening of Spring 
and the golden reign, succeeded by the "axe age," the "sword 
age" with "cloven shields" and the "iron age" of winter. 



WALI OR SKEAF THE FOUNDLING ANCESTOR 
OF THE ANGLES AND DANES. 

And there came from the unknown an oarless, rudderless 
boat, and drifted ashore with a little babe sleeping upon a 
sheaf of wheat, and the boat bore upon its mast head a shield, 
and they raised him up as a foster child and called him Skeaf, 
from the sheaf on which he lay, and when he grew to man- 
hood he was raised on the shield and crowned king; he ex- 
celled all men in wisdom and reigned in peace and prosperity 
until the time of his departure had come. 

And when he died they carried his body to the seashore, 
and laid it again upon the same mystic boat which had brought 
him, and the vessel drifted silently away to the unknown. 

He is the Knight of the Swan sent from Paradise to earth; 
he is the Lohengrin who arrived in a boat drawn by a swan 
with a golden chain, and again departed in the same boat 
when his time had come. He is Orpheus, the Spring and 
Summer harper slain, whose harp floated down the river sing- 
ing his death song. He is the Norse Balder (the Good) sent 
home in that same ship, the Ring-horn, the luanr ark. 



THE ANCIENT CITY 119 

And all these civilizers are visibly the first ring of the Spring 
moon. The Agni of the Hindu, the same with the Praman- 
tha, the Prometheus, the fire stick and the flint knife. 



PART SIXTH. 
COSMOGONY WORLD BUILDING 

AND 

THE BOOK OF BEGINNINGS. 

In the time of the mythical Moses the earth was a hollow 
dome resting on the primeval abyss of waters as a boat ; through 
this hollow of the interior the sun passed. 

"Thou shalt not make a likeness of anything above the 
earth, nor of the waters under the earth." 

— (Hebrew Decalogue.) 

The earth was the centre of the universe, and the milky 
way was the old deserted path where the sun moved at the be- 
ginning of the world. 

That a solid firmament or floor of the heaven was placed 
above the earth to shut off the waters above the earth, and a 
window had to be opened when it rained as in the time of the 
great flood, "the windows of heaven were opened." 

And in Babylonian belief a world as large as ours existed 
on the other side of the iron firmament, with seas, canals, 
and rivers, and beings unknown. (Maspero: Dawn of Civil- 
ization, p. 97.) 

In Egyptian texts of creation on the day of creation Shu 
was creator, and the earth was raised up under his feet as a 
long table, and heaven appeared above his head as a ceiling of 
iron, upon which rolled the divine ocean. 



120 THE ANCIENT CITY 

In Hindu the supreme being raised the earth and placed it 
upon the summit of the ocean, where it floats like a mighty 
vessel, and from its expansive surface does not sink beneath 
the waters, and like Hebrew, rests on waters under the earth. 
(Wilson: Vishnu Purana, Vol. I, p. 65.) 

"For he hath founded the earth upon the seas, and estab- 
lished it upon the floods." (Psalm 24:2.) 

In early ages sun and moon, stars, earth, air, and ocean 
were living beings, and self-conscious. 

The Homeric world was a plane bounded by the visible 
horizon, and around this plain of earth ran the river of the 
ocean, a deep flowing river, which was the boundary between 
the world of light and the world of darkness; and beyond this 
river of the ocean was a land of giants and Cimmerians, who 
lived in darkness. 

To the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians, some believed 
the sun and moon passed over the world by day, and under 
the world by night; and others believed the sun and moon 
revolved around the earth in a horizontal plane. (Maspero: 
p. 544.) 

To the early Greeks Colchis was the eastern extremity of 
the earth, and the pillars of Hercules was the western. 

In the fifth Cosmogonical tablet of the Chaldeans, "he 
opened the great gates of heaven (sunrise and sunset), and 
fixed its bolts, and made himself steps." They are the steps 
by which the sun climbs from the gate of rising to the zenith 
at noon. 

The earth to the Norseman was an island of the sea, sur- 
rounded by the stream of the ocean ; and the earth would again 
sink in the sea after the battle of Ragnarok. 

The thunder was the bang of the heavenly door, or the 
roar of the chariot wheels. 

And the lightning was the flashing tongue of the storm 
demon. 



THE ANCIENT CITY 121 

The rainbow was stretched out to give warning of war 
or drought. 

And the luminaries were set in heaven to count days and 
years for man, and they had magic for science, and fairy tales 
for history. 

The first ring of the moon was personified, deified, and 
called Eros by the Greeks, and in Hindu he was called Kama, 
the god of Amor and love, for when the new moon returned 
to the Spring equinox it became the season of amor, and the 
lightning of the heavenly fire came down, which during winter 
had lost its thunderbolt, and the waters were released and fer- 
tilized, and the rainbow maiden who had been in hiding again 
appeared; vegetation sprang up from the grave; all nature 
heard the shout from that hill of shouting, the mount of the 
East, where the shout first went up on the morning of creation, 
and the glad tiding went forth, and heaven and earth sang 
together in harmony and accord; and for want of a better 
theory, this new creation was thrown back to the beginning of 
time, for the new creation occurs at no other time of the year. 
And this new moon pillar was set up on end and became the 
wedding post, an Eros, or God of Love; the wedding of sun 
and moon, consequently of the earth, which is in sympathy 
with every phase and change of the sun and moon, and this 
pillar by association became the creator and begetter, for in 
their belief it impregnated and fertilized the moon waters. 
This ray was the rod that divided the moon waters, for Moses 
sweetened the bitter waters of Marah. It was the peeled rod 
or phallus for Jacob which fertilized his flocks and was deified 
as a creator when the world and the universe were called out of 
darkness and chaos, and it was at the Spring equinox where 
the nuptials at that time were celebrated in the sign of Aries 
the lamb, consequently called the marriage festival of the lamb. 

This Springtime was thrown back to the original creation,, 
and the Eros or Kama was supposed to have animated the 



122 THE ANCIENT CITY 

chaotic waters when the universe was in nebular form; this 
divine seed or generator of the new moon, called Protogonus 
or first born, was the desire that arose in the unorganized matter 
and brought harmony out of chaos, acting as sperm or yeast, 
for he was born not of father or mother, and as Kama in the 
Hindu was even held superior to the gods; it was divine fire 
"the unborn," "the self existent" ; this seed was the life and soul 
of matter. 

This indestructible ring of fire or soul of the moon the 
first principle which survives the conflagration of the moon, 
and rises from its ashes on the third day, has been amplified 
and expanded in the marvellous flights of fancy, until it be- 
comes all things. It is time, it is eternity, and it is Alpha and 
Omega; the beginning and end of all things. He was the 
first redeemer of the chaotic waste and awakened life on the 
moon waters, and as love mingled together and harmonized 
the elements. 

"Without a father of thy wondrous frame, 
Thyself the essence whence thy essence came." 

In Hebrew Legend, he is that Shamir or serpent worm 
called into life by the Almighty to assist in creation when light 
and darkness were struggling together in chaos; it was the old 
serpent, grey and ancient, the little giant, the dwarf wonder — 
the first ring of the moon that tamed the wild warlike elements 
that would not unite, and inspired them with fire and passion; 
for he was the primal germ that caused the first movement in 
the unorganized abyss ; that magic wand seen to spring up from 
the dark abyss of the moon, born without father or mother. 

This new moon ring or word was the wisdom or embodi- 
ment of God the Logos found in the primitive religions in 
Proverbs 8:22 had dwelt with God from the beginning; and 
in Job 28 :20 it had assisted in creation ; and in Sirach 24 : 1 23 
the spirit of God created before all things. It was the word 



THE ANCIENT CITY 123 

of creation; it was "Divine Reason." Logos was mediator 
from aforetime when the shout was heard from the hill of 
shouting, the word or voice of creation. 

The general idea of a watery mist transformed and or- 
ganized by the fire rod or first primitive ring of the moon, 
which is sometimes called the Divine Breath or Divine Word, 
Love, or Eros, or Life Germ, generally concealed in the abyss 
which generates motion and inspires life, or again represented 
as a golden egg which hatched the projenitor or active creator 
Narayana. 

Seed lay in the ocean. All father Odin the uncreated 
lay in the abyss and willed what came into being; in this abyss 
lay the supreme powers before creation. 

Sometimes referred to as a spontaneous generation of the 
powers of nature drawn together by amor. 

Throughout the ancient religions this creative force is kept 
in view in the mysteries; he was a Phanes, the first principle 
of things, the Orphic Phanes, God of Light existed before 
the sun. 

He runs all through Mythology as the charm word or 
spell, whether cross, crescent, horseshoe — all one; the magic 
spell that breaks enchantment, slays giants, dispels darkness, 
breaks fetters, open doors and bars, and conquers all obstacles. 
The new moon, or first born ring of the Easter moon. 

There appeared to be something in nature that bound 
the heavens and earth and sea together in a bond of sympathy 
and love, and that power was deified as Eros or Kama who 
personified the harmony of their movements. 

They beheld the chaos of the nebulous moon acted upon 
by the redeeming light, as we now see what we call mind 
acting upon unorganized matter. 

From the phallic origin of life here they inferred a alike 
beginning at the first, and we are carried back to the dawn 
of time when a celestial phallus or solar beam, or the phallic 



124 THE ANCIENT CITY 

blood of a maimed Uranus fell upon the primeval waters which 
were feminine and begat life. 

The phallus was worshipped as the type of creation — 
the generating power of the universe. 

In the Egyptian account Ra the ancient one existed in the 
primordial ocean in the abyss of Nu before creation — eyes 
closed and shut in a lotus bud as a pre-mundane sun; and the 
Norse Odin who lay in the abyss and willed creation. 

That Eros, the first ring of the moon, was the seed of life 
left in Pandora's box, the Lif, and Lifthrauser, the twin forks 
of the moon that will be concealed in the earth at the destruc- 
tion of the world and survive Ragnarok. 

In one account Earth Erebus and Love were the first of 
beings, and Love (Eros) issued from the egg of night floated 
in chaos and illuminated all things by his torch, where before 
existed strife and confusion of elements. 

In Japanese the rush Asi as creator sprang from the sur- 
face of the moon water, and became the creator, and that 
rush Asi is the Asa God Odin of the Norse who is the same 
reed or rush (new moon ring) who lay in the primitive abyss 
and willed creation. The name is heard in the Asura of the 
Hindu and the Egyptian Osiris, and the European Aesir, and 
in a cosmogonic hymn of the Rig Veda it is said that dark- 
ness existed at the beginning, and desire arose upon it, the seed 
of mind and thought, and crosswise was stretched out the ray 
line of the Gods — which was the spider's web or rod of the 
new moon. 

The Babylonian god, Asari, was the son of Ea, and this Ea 
was lord of the garden ; this Asari, the son of Ea, was the bene- 
factor of mankind, cured disease, raised the dead. He corres- 
ponded to Osiris of the Egyptians. The foundation Eridu, 
the garden of Ea goes back to 6000 B. C. 

For that new moon ring is the source, the embryo, the 
Genesis, the main spring, the magnet, the pivot, the loadstar, 



THE ANCIENT CITY 125 

the leaven, the beginning and end of all things, and the key 
of all Mythology. 

That seed ring is the compressed light of the world, that 
moon, though it illumes the heavens, can close in the twinkling 
of an eye, and be thrust in a vest pocket; that seed ring which 
continues to drop rings until its orb is full. 

He was the mysterious Melchizedek or priest king without 
beginning or end of days, who met Abraham at the moon door 
when he returned from the battle between the Spring kings and 
the Winter kings at the victory of the Spring over Winter at 
the Spring equinox. He was priest of the moon altar. 

In the general belief of the ancients, water held all things 
in solution, and was the source of all life and generation. In 
the Babylonian account all things were water-born; the sun, 
moon, earth, and all the Gods, and all living things had sprung 
from the primeval ocean. 

In Hindu Narayan, the supreme Lord, sprang from the 
waters which were his first moving place. 

In the Cosmogonical ideas as taught by the moon, the 
chaos or protoplasm was acted upon by a creative power, 
either within or without its waters, as a churning or moving 
of its waters by wind, divine breath or voice, or as the seed 
of life born concealed in its waters. 

Cosmogonies are of long slow growth, and passed through 
many editions of more advanced thought and refined specu- 
lations as the nations grew in importance. 

In their effort to fathom the origin of the world, and trace 
chaos to cosmos, the ancients employed the present as a lever 
to pry up the past and discover if possible the origin and 
evolution of matter, and the mystery of being, which gave 
rise to many confused and contradictory theories of the phil- 
osophical schools of the old world; but they were amended 
from time to time as knowledge increased, and bequeathed to 



126 THE ANCIENT CITY 

posterity as sacred traditions, which we now know were in- 
spired by the observations of natural phenomena. 

It was an attempt to explain the unkown by the known 
and create a past by the materials of the present. 

And the present annual evolution of the year must resemble 
the cosmical beginning of the past. 

Every year when the sun and moon arrived at a certain 
place in the east at Springtime, there was witnessed a renewal 
of life and verdure and a resurrection from the grave of winter, 
and this scene by inference was thrown back to the beginning 
of time. 

In a general view as taught in the ancient schools, a watery 
chaos filled all the space afterward occupied by heaven, earth, 
and underworld, and called variously Chaos, the Abyss, or the 
Deep, and generally figured as a dragon, giant, or monster; 
and that the present order of things was evolved from the form- 
less chaos or abyss of waters which was the eternal matter 
of the universe. 

This primeval sea of waters has still to be fought and sub- 
dued every year at the Springtime, as when the Babylonian 
Merodach fought the dragon Tiamat, as later accomplished 
by Sigurd the Volsung, or St. George. 

The moon was the battle ground between the rival powers 
of light and darkness; or the sun and moon; and the moon 
the wise man taught all theories of world making and evolu- 
tions. 

Every year the world ran back in winter, the sea revolted 
the waters of Marah were again bitter and had to be healed 
by the sun rod. 

Sometimes the creator combats and destroys the personified 
abyss or chaos as a female dragon or monster; sometimes he 
weds with her as Adam's first wife. All the solar gods had 
to take this dark woman for his first wife. Jupiter married 



THE ANCIENT CITY 127 

Latona; Abram had to cohabit with Hagar the hag, Jacob 
with Leah the dark one, and Adam with Lilith. 

All the ancient Cosmogonies were founded upon observa- 
tions of the moon, for the moon was a nebulous fog acted 
upon by the redeeming ring of light until its orb was filled with 
light, and then torn in pieces. The Egyptian God Osiris torn 
in fourteen pieces, the same number of rings as contained in the 
full moon. Again as Actaeon torn in pieces by fifty dogs — the 
fifty-two weeks of the year in round numbers. As Pentheus 
torn in pieces by his own mother Agave; and as Orpheus torn 
in pieces by the Thracian women, and as the garments of 
Christ parted, and distributed by lot, which is the same cosmic 
legend. 

And the old theories of creation from civilized to savage, 
all follow the plan and scheme marked out and taught by the 
moon, the creation by sacrifice. 

In the Scandinavian account creation began at Ginungagap 
(which means yawning gap) which is the gap or rent in the 
moon. 

As the nebulous ball of the moon was seen to split and 
divide between the two contending forces of fire and water, a 
like condition must have prevailed at the beginning when all 
the elements were in confusion, and accordingly a like theory 
was postulated for the universe at the beginning with the fire 
upon one side and the ice upon the other. 

And when the first battle was over, a giant had been 
formed which was the monster universe — he was called the 
giant Ymer, and this monster, as yet crude and uncivilized, 
was split apart to form the heavens, the earth and the lumi- 
naries. 

And this splitting process, or the dividing asunder of the 
moon and her alternate reconstruction, have permeated not only 
the building of the universe, but also that of the Gods who 
have suffered a like fate. They were torn up and devoured by 



128 THE ANCIENT CITY 

our savage ancestors, and we still eat their mangled flesh and 
drink their blood. 

In the old Babylonian account, this chaos was called the 
dragon Tiamat, who was split asunder by Marduk with the 
sword of light, which is the old black moon split in twain by 
the organizer. 

For creation was the struggle between the gods of light 
and darkness, between confusion and order; and the old chaos 
personified as the dragon Tiamat, and the visible heaven was 
formed of its skin. 

In Persian instead of a giant Ymer, they have the Divine 
Bull, or the primitive ox, slain from the foundation of the 
world, which is the same moon under a different symbol. 

In Vedic and Maori legend, heaven and earth were united 
in embrace, and produced children, which were imprisoned in 
darkness, but they were rent apart by the children of Saturn, 
which are the rings seen escaping from the ark of the black 
moon. 

In Hindu it was Viswa-Karma (omnificent) the personi- 
fication of the creative power; the supreme architect of the 
universe, "all seeing," beyond the comprehension of mortals, 
sacrificed himself to himself, and at the beginning offered up 
all worlds in a Sarva-Medha, or general sacrifice, and ended 
by sacrificing himself. He was lord of arts, and the artificer 
of the Gods, and the return of all things to the beginning. 
(Dawson's Hindu Classical Dictionary.) 

"I am the cell; I am the opening chasm. I am the place 
of reanimation, the landing stone, the harbor of life, existing 
of yore in the great seas from the time when the shout was 
heard at the side of the rock." (Da vies' Mythology British 
Druids, p. 163.) 

The Janus, the opener of the gate of life at the silver door 
of the moon. 



THE ANCIENT CITY 129 

Hebrew Beth-peor and Beth-pazzer. The house of "gap- 
ing" and "dividing" asunder. 

The Baal-peor, the master of the opening. 

The golden wedge of Ophir, and that golden wedge that 
fell from heaven and cleft the ground for the sacred city of 
the Peruvians. 

In the Cosmogony of Egypt. Ptah, the Egyptian He- 
phaestus, was the "opener," the divine architect. 

Splitting process. Minerva coming from the cleft head of 
Zeus, which was the moon, split by the sword of Hephaestus. 

In Hindu Cosmogony Agni split the mountain open with 
his tongue (new moon) and brought forth the mead which the 
Dasyus (hostile powers) had concealed in the mountain, as 
Odin bored a hole down in the cavern of the giantess to obtain 
Suttungs, mead of life; and it was the arrow or golden wedge 
of the sun which cleft the moon plant, and children were passed 
through cleft trees to be healed following the example or the 
way of life pointed out by the sun, the great healer, and made 
finger rings of sacred wood and plants as antidotes for poison, 
as the sun made the all healing ring. 

The gap in the moon mountain where so many mythic 
battles have been fought annually between Gods and Titans; 
it was the Pass of Thermopylae. The pass where Oedipus 
slew his father, which is the young sun of the Spring slaying 
the old. It was the gap cleft for Moses in the moon mountain. 

It was according to the necromancy of nature every Spring, 
and every time of new moon, to fish up that island from the 
dark blue waters of the moon which was thrown back by the 
ancients, as the process by which the original creation of the 
planets was accomplished by being fished up from the chaos 
of waters. 

Within the waters lay the earth, and Vishnu took the 
form of a boar and lifted the earth above the waters upon his 
tusks, which are the two forks of the moon seen lifting land 



i 3 o THE ANCIENT CITY 

out of the moon water. (Wilson: Vishnu-Puran, p. 57- 
59-62.) 

In Egyptian heaven, earth and reptiles were raised from the 
primordial waters Nu. "I raised them from the primordial 
waters Nu. I was alone. I found no place on which I could 
stand." 

Among American Indians it was a musk-rat or Coyote 
or beaver that first brought earth up from the bottom of the 
deep which grew to a world. 

The Pimas, a tribe of Central America, said the earth 
first appeared as a spider's web, which is the thread of the new 
moon, floating on the bed of the moon sea. 

In Chinese legend an egg floated and swam to and fro; it 
rocked and rolled — it hatched and grew into wide spreading 
land. 

In Japan, a male and female gave birth to the land of 
Japan with a heavenly spear made of a jewel; they stood on 
the floating Bridge of Heaven and stirred the ocean with the 
spear until the brine was churned into foam; some foam 
dropped from the spear point, and became an island called 
Onogoro, or self-curdled ; that foam was the new moon ring. 

In Maori legend, Maui, the culture hero, made a fish 
hook of his grandfather's jawbone, which he obtained from 
the lower-world, and went fishing; and while he sat he sang 
a magic song, and as the waves boiled, he pulled hard and 
raised the struggling fish to the surface, which settled and be- 
came the North Island of New Zealand. 

All these theories embody the same idea differently ex- 
pressed ; in a word it is the white island of the new moon fished 
up from the moon sea, the first land created. 

EGG THEORY. 

In the Orphic Cosmogony the egg produced by chaos was 
silver white. (Lobeck: Aglaophamus, p. 473.) 



THE ANCIENT CITY 131 

An egg encompassed by the good serpent ; Agatha Daimon 
was in the temple of the Tyrian Hercules. 

Again he was Ptah, the opener of the world egg; the 
Baal-peor, the opener; as Vulcan cleft the head of Jove to 
give birth to Athene, who is the Spring moon. 

In the Greek, it is Leda, the swan who lays the egg which 
hatched the twins Castor and Polux (who are the twin forks 
of the moon). 

All these incubators are the moon or water bird brooding 
upon the moon waters. 

In the Egyptian Ra was a luminous egg and hatched in 
the east by the celestial goose. 

Mr. Bryant remarks that a large hieroglyphic egg, either 
of Leda or Nemesis, was suspended in the temple of the 
Dioscuri in Laconia. (Bryant Analysis: V. 11, p. 319.) 

Among the cosmogonical tales of Korea, is the following, 
which is decisive. It says that a golden egg of great size and 
shaped like a gourd, was found on a mountain, and on being 
opened was found to contain a rosy boy, and he wedded the 
daughter of a well dragon. 

The gourd-shaped egg is the first ring of the moon, which 
is the Spring moon, or Eros, and the well dragon's daughter 
is the Venus churned from the sea ; she is also the Spring moon 
born of the well dragon, the sea monster. 

Mr. Bryant observes that the dove Oinas was represented 
hovering over the mundane egg, which was exposed to the 
fury of Typhon (who is the sea, the ocean personified as a 
dragon). 

In Hindu Cosmogony: The self-existant created the waters 
and deposited in them a seed which became a golden egg, in 
which he himself was born, as Brahma, the progenitor of all 
worlds, and as the water was the place of his first movement, 
he was called Narayana. 

And this cosmic egg or seed of life which is the Eros, 



1 32 THT ANCIENT CITY 

desire, or love principle, is the first ring of the moon which acts 
as leaven in the lump of Chaos. 

In the Egyptian papyrus of Ani, the perfected is heard to 
say: "I am the perfected soul in the holy egg of the Abtu 
fish." (The fish is the black moon which holds the white 
egg or moon ring, the soul of the moon.) 

Again in the same papyrus, "O thou who art in the egg 
(that is Ra) who shineth in thy disk, or riseth in thy horizon, 
and doth shine like gold above the sky." 

In the funeral ceremonies of the Egyptian book of the 
dead, the arisen soul is heard to say: "I rise out of the egg 
in the land hidden; may my mouth be given me to speak 
before the great lord of the underworld." In fact the mummy 
case represented that cell or cript from which Christ was re- 
born, the manger and the cave, the egg or cell of transformation ; 
on the day of his birth he is purified and says: "I am purified 
m my double nest." (It was the cave nest of Machpelah, 
"double division.") 

Egyptian book of the dead: May I rise, even I like a 
hawk of gold coming forth from its egg. May I fly; may I 
rise eve I. 'May I gather myself together as a golden hawk 
with the head of a phoenix and sit down among the great 
gods. 

This is the egg theory of creation by a brooding process, 
sometimes brooded over by a feathered serpent or bird serpent 
brooding over the waters. 

There are ancient representations of the mundane egg en- 
compassed by the Agathodaenmon or good serpent, the same 
serpent that embraced Eve in its winter folds. 

In the Northern Mythology Brynhild in a sleep trance is 
surrounded by the seven-fold serpent on Hindfel. It is the 
dark orb of the moon surrounded by the white circle of light 
or the new moon. 

Davies, in his Mythology of the British Druids, has given 



THE ANCIENT CITY 133 

a description of the celebration of the Spring festival in Druidi- 
cal times. 

When the Avanc was drawn out of the shallow of a 
local lake by a bull, "Lively was the aspect of him who in his 
prowess had snatched over the ford that involved ball which 
casts its rays to a distance, the splendid product of the adder 
shot forth by serpents." 

It represented the new moon of Easter, drawn out of the 
moon waters. This new moon was hatched from the in- 
volved ball of serpents' froth or spittle, which the serpents to- 
gether blew up in the air and called a serpent's egg. 

Again in the Egyptian, the creator of the world, under 
the name of Cneph, who was the Agathodaemon, or good 
serpent, was represented thrusting forth an egg from his mouth, 
and this might throw light on the Indian serpent mound of 
Adams Co., O., where the serpent is seen thrusting forth an egg 
from his mouth. 

The Anquinum, or snake's egg, was the most potent of all 
charms among the British Druids. It was formed of the saliva 
or froth of a mass of writhing serpents and then tossed up in 
the air. It was then caught by a Druid priest in his cloak, 
and carried off at full speed upon a horse pursued by the ser- 
pents until they were stopped by a running stream. This 
Anquinum must be procured at a certain time of the moon 
which is in the Spring at the time of Easter. 

The involved ball, or Anquinum, is the moon spittle or 
froth, and the serpents are stopped by the running stream of 
the new moon, which darkness cannot cross. It is the same 
as the fairy cup stolen from the fairies in other tales. 

This saliva or froth is the same spittle of all the gods in a 
jar which formed Kvaser, the God of Peace and Amity be- 
tween the Asas and Vans at the Spring festival. 

An egg was chosen as the type of creation and beginning 
of life, also of resurrection and future life. 



134 THE ANCIENT CITY 

The dark moon surrounded by a ring of light, which is 
the new moon, or fire ring offered a fit type for the generation 
of the universe from chaos; the black moon was likened to an 
egg encompassed by a generative principle of light and life, 
and likened to a serpent, and this serpent creator was the oldest 
and greatest of the gods, the "ancient of days" the indestruct- 
ible. 

Among the Finns the mother bird hatched the world's 
egg at the vernal equinox. 

The Persians and Syrians both expressed their divine an- 
cestors as the progeny of eggs. (Bryant's Analysis, V. 1 1 , 
p. 319.) 

Hence eggs were consecrated and used in the mysteries 
(which celebrated the mysteries of life) and are still in sym- 
bolical use at our Easter. 

The moon to the ancients was the mother of all things; 
she was represented by the British Druids as a great Caldron 
or cup, holding the nine maidens or water damsels, who were 
called by the Greeks the nine muses. They were made nine 
to represent the nine months of prenatal life of human beings, 
for the moon carried in her womb the seeds of all life — these 
nine maids were fairies; they lived in the bosom of the water, 
where they celebrated nightly orgies; they foretold the deluge. 
This caldron of the ruler of the deep was first warmed by the 
breath of the nine damsels. 

This caldron had a ridge of pearls around its border, 
which is the ring of the new moon on the rim of the moon 
lake and corresponds to the necklace of Harmonia; this cal- 
dron of Ceridwen (British Ceres) brewed the water of inspira- 
tion, corresponding to the amrita of the Hindus; and there 
the first sentence of the mysteries had been pronounced, and 
these mysteries had been four times pronounced at the quadrangu- 
lar inclosure — "and whoever is not bound by his sacred oath, 
in the hands of the sword bearer, shall he be left, and before 



THE ANCIENT CITY 135 

the entrance of the gate of Hell shall the horns of life be burn- 
ing." The horns of light are the two forks of the new moon, 
which shows that the entrance of hell is in the moon, as well 
as the entrance to God's throne. (Davies' Mythology of 
British Druids, pp. 166-219-223.) 

These damsels by their song move the waters to harmony; 
there the song of creation began; these damsels occur in 
Egypt and among the Greeks occur as the nine muses, they 
sing around the altar of Zeus, and sing the origin of the world, 
of Gods, and men, and celebrate the glory and renown of 
Zeus, as Cherubim and Seraphim; they sing around the same 
throne of Jehovah, they sing at the banquets of the Gods and 
at the marriage festival of Spring, and chant the death song 
of heroes as the Greek Homer and Aegir the old Norse sea 
king. 

As the primitive universe was called into existence, made 
and perfected by harmony and rhythm by the magic of the 
heavenly spheres, and the elements in a heavenly choir, and the 
air tuned to anthem and song. 

The original creation took place on the margin of the 
moon in the moon marsh, that white island was the first land 
that ever appeared above the water. The scene of the Greek 
creation according to Pindar was in the Cephisian marsh, 
which represented the moon marsh brought down for the ex- 
altation of the Greeks. 

In general all the ancient nations, both civilized and sav- 
age, were agreed that the first creation began in the moving 
of the waters, or by the churning of the primeval waters, in 
like manner as they beheld the moon waters churned by the 
fire stick or magic rod of the new moon. 

In the oldest cave rocks of India is found depicted the spirit 
of God brooding over the waters. 

1 hat spirit of the moon waters personified as a Narayana, 
"mover of waters,'" which is the first ring of the moon, as the 



136 THE ANCIENT CITY 

Melchizedek, or priest king of the moon altar without begin- 
ning or end of days. 

And this creation was accomplished by a power without 
the abyss described as a divine wind, breath, or voice; some- 
times as a bird passing over the watery abyss, as we now be- 
hold the ring or wand of light passing over the dark waters 
of the moon; or again this creative power lay concealed in its 
depths as a seed or egg of divine intelligence, the first power 
of creation. 

In the Egyptian Thoth the moon-god, called "The tongue 
of Ra, the sun-god" created by his voice, and the world came 
forth out of the mist at his call. 

Thoth gave the world light when all was darkness. That 
tongue of Ra, that fiery tongue which came out upon the 
moon like the handwriting upon the wall — the golden pen, the 
first word ever spoken. 

In the Persian account Ormuzd created by his word "Hon- 
over." 

In the Babylonian Silik-Mulu-Khi, son of Ea, created the 
world by breathing on the primeval sea. 

In the Japan account the creator was called Asi; he arose 
out of the mud like a reed or rush, which was again the same 
wonder-working rod of the new moon. 

In the Phoenician account the creator was the divine breath 
or wind upon the waters, a general evolving power, a wind 
enamored of its own elements in a conjugal way, breathed upon 
the primeval waters. 

In the Polynesian account the heaven or air-god Tangaloa 
as a bird hovered over the waters. 

In the Kalevala of the Finns an eagle floated over the 
waters by rocking to and fro in the cradle of the waters. 

With the Quiches of Central America Gucumatz or Quet- 
zalcoatl, the feathered serpent, presided over the sea in the dark- 



THE ANCIENT CITY 137 

ness, and the creators and rulers said "Earth," and the earth 
was formed like a cloud, which was created by a word. 

Again in poetic fancy the universe was sung into harmony 
by the harmonious flow of vocal sounds, as in Druidical Britain, 
by the song of the nine sea maidens, who lived in the sea, cor- 
responding to the nine muses of the Greeks ; their voices moved 
the waters, or again in the Norse, the waters were self-moving 
at the creation. 

"So perished the Gap of the Gaping and the cold sea 
swayed and sang." 

As in the Hebrew the morning stars sang together (Job 
38:7) and the shout went up« 

In the Mosaic account the "Spirit of God moved upon 
the waters," and the dry land appeared and floated upon the 
sea, as heard in the commandment, "Thou shalt not make an 
image of anything in heaven above or of the waters under the 
earth." 

No matter whether a divine word or breath or voice or 
divine wind, or a dove or hovering bird, or a maiden, or a 
Jonah cast in the sea, or the olive oil of healing in the hands 
of Athene in her contest with Neptune for dominion; they are 
all one, visibly the first ring of the new moon moving over the 
moon sea at the Spring equinox, "when the good and the evil 
wed and beget the best and the worst." 

Hebrew Cosmogony principally drawn from Babylonian 
and Persian. 

No two accounts of the Semitic nations agree in all their 
details, but are varied in proportion to the time they have been 
separated or influenced by commercial activity, or literary cul- 
ture. Even the Babylonians had several accounts of their 
flood, cosmogony and theogony; the Greeks have various ac- 
counts of their gods and their wonder workings. The Phoeni- 
cians have various cosmogonical traditions and discrepancies. 

"And darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the 



138 THE ANCIENT CITY 

spirit of God moved upon the waters. (Gen. 1 :2.) The same 
scene as Christ, the new born sun of Spring, stilling the sea. 

The Hebrew Cosmogony is of late origin and does not deal 
with the genesis of matter, but simply says, "In the beginning 
God created" without defining the aeon, and that the formless 
void was acted upon by a creative or formative force which 
takes personal form — "the spirit of God moved upon the 
waters." 

In a later version the old theory of the earth resting upon 
the primeval sea as an island was abandoned, and the earth had 
escaped from its moorings and hung in the air. 

"He has spread out the North over the Void and hung 
the earth upon nothing." (Job 26:7.) 

Traditions similar to the Hebrew are found among other 
nations. The Etrurian creation takes place in six periods of 
a thousand years each ; in Persian Mythology Ormuzd, the God 
of Light by his word, created the world in six periods of a 
thousand years each. 

The old religious conceptions and mental aberrations of 
our gullible ancestors are fast being obliterated by the growing 
doubt in the reality of the outer world and the negation of posi- 
tive ideals. 

Historical and positive Christianity has been superseded by 
moral rationalism and philosophical nihilism, and many of the 
first scholars of the age deny all knowledge and all reality, and 
openly and firmly declare that "nothing can be known." 

Things in themselves cannot be known — that only phe- 
nomena are known. All knowledge is relative; there is no 
knowledge absolute. 

All wisdom and science is but an aggregate of common 
sense, like the penny savings in a bank. And religion like 
science is but a product of the human mind, and it is man 
only that reveals God. 

The knowledge of an absolute is impossible; knowledge 



THE ANCIENT CITY 139 

can extend no further than between a subject and an object. 
God is only a logical abstraction, and an abstraction is no knowl- 
edge but a mere conception deduced from physical phenomena ; 
being, time, space and motion are but empty abstractions and 
transparent infinity; and have no existence when deprived of 
visible or sensible objects, like the numbers of arithmetic, which 
are of themselves abstract, and mean nothing and are but an 
empty name when used without reference to an object. 

Our feeling, thought, will, reason, and action are but phy- 
sical and chemical action, and mind cannot be separated from 
matter, and cannot exist without a material basis, like the blaze 
of a torch, and all mind and soul but a modification of matter 
like force ; mental is but physical action. 

All matter and mind will be inertia until acted upon by a 
force, the force which acts strongest will prevail. 

Reason and reflection, but a growth of mind from rude ani- 
mal instinct. 

Dreams, visions and revelations are but the distorted re- 
flections of wakefulness. 

In materialism the soul is only a function of the body, and 
both perish at death. 

Growth in one direction is atrophy in another. For if the 
yesterday had not died, where would have been to-day? 

Forces are now co-operating to awaken the possibilities 
that lay slumbering in the dormant and undeveloped future. 

In Greek religion the Fates (Moira) were at the head 
of the Pantheon before whom Zeus bowed his head. In 
Christian religion it remains in part as predestination. 

The universe is but a co-operative society for what aim or 
end is unknown, and depends upon its power of reproduction 
for its own existence and preservation, which is only preserved 
by perpetual creation. 

Every living being is in a constant state of change, and 
the earth is but a battle field for the sword-play and pastime 



i 4 o THE ANCIENT CITY 

of the elements. Every leaf and blossom of the Spring, every 
throb of life, and the joy and song of the bird is but a form of 
death. For it has been truly said that a new eternity is begun 
at every moment. 

In Hindu the destroying power is the generator, and death 
and destruction but a form of creation and rebirth. 

In a Hindu saying: "The only thing that is stable, is insta- 
bility." 

In a poetical view, it has been maintained there is no oppos- 
ing principle in nature, and that the seeming war and strife of 
the elements is but the noise of the shuttle and loom and the 
respiration of cosmic existence. And that every sound, how- 
ever harsh and discordant to us, is music somewhere. 

But to science nature is but a whirlpool of endless move- 
ment to which law and order and design are unknown, for 
when we speak of being, time, space and motion, we speak from 
a human standpoint. 

Jacobi says nature reveals only fate; only an indissoluble 
chain of causes without beginning and without end, excluding 
both providence and chance. She works without will; she 
takes counsel neither of the good nor the beautiful; creating 
nothing; she casts up from her dark abyss only eternal trans- 
formations of herself, unconsciously, and without end. 

And we are wondering still what happened in the night of 
the world, for the ancients are no oracle upon the subject. 
Visionaries tell us there is a correspondence between the creation 
of the universe and the human individual — that earthly things 
are but shadows of the divine above; that the visible is but the 
image of the invisible, and the correspondence of the outward 
and the inner, and that the terrestrial corresponds to the celes- 
tial house, and why they are not apparent to the vulgar is for 
the want of receptive power. 

The orthodox believe creation originated from benevolent 
design; but rationalists believe it originated from the blind un- 



THE ANCIENT CITY 141 

knowing forces of nature. That the universe is run by physical 
and chemical laws; that there is nothing supernatural but every- 
thing rational. 

Evolution can advance only by warfare and strife — light 
struggles with darkness; that there is a life evolving power in- 
herent in nature. Creation and dissolution — are one, and in- 
separable. 

That in the beginning there existed in all matter the possi- 
bilities of life. The consuming fire under a milder form of sun- 
light is creative. That the present condition is but the chaotic 
powers in higher development. That by the churning of chaos 
the elements were separated and organic life began, and that 
this evolution is still in progress and will continue until the highest 
possibilities of life are reached, when the earth will begin to 
decay, and like the moon loose heat, air and water the susten- 
ance of life. 

For all worlds have a career marked out that cannot be 
changed; that all life and death are but a conflict of the ele- 
ments, and this process of change and evolution will go on 
through eternity, the end of which is but the beginning. 

Under a more scientific aspect, organic evolution is from 
formless protoplasm itself evolved from inert matter and all this 
evolution has been referred to known and recognized laws of 
physics and chemistry, and what we call life and soul is not 
soul but living matter, having physical and chemical properties. 
Thought and reason are but physical action. (Darwin and 
Lankester.) 

That the universe is governed by universal attraction and re- 
pulsion (which is negative attraction) and behind the positive 
is a negative process. 

It is now known that the world is swimming through 
an ocean of ether, the all prevading medium which is elastic, has 
no weight, offers no resistance; it is called an elastic solid; it 
reflects light and heat, but to the highest reach of thought is 



142 THE ANCIENT CITY 

still an inconceivable nothingness. It has been advocated that 
all matter is but one substance in infinite forms and manifesta- 
tions, compressed into solids or dissipated in nebula and that 
electricity is the ambassador of the universe; that nature is all 
one, which moves in all motion, bound in one tie, and that all 
life is one that lives in all life, and that the universe itself is one 
living body and soul, the universal being. 

In the Hindu, the universe is filled by Purusha of sunlight 
lustre beyond the darkness; "Purusha, great lord mover of ex- 
istence, the undecaying — sees without eyes, hears without 
ears — great primeval Purusha, ancient one, soul of all things, 
eternal, universal diffusion, incapable of birth; form not per- 
ceptible to the eye, known through the heart. By him creation 
is ruled considered as earth, water, fire and ether; the one God 
hidden in all things, the universal soul." 

To science and rationalism this is but visionary abstraction. 
It is now taught that in the changes that take place power 
is never destroyed, but simply escapes into new conditions. 
That the various forms of force are mutually convertible into 
each other, and at the same time power like matter is inde- 
structible; its total amount in the universe being conserved or 
remaining perpetually unchanged. 

The records of our earth stored in our hills and valleys, and 
engraved upon rocks, give proof that our world is continually 
being destroyed and reconstructed. We find everywhere the 
eternal evolution of matter and never ending unrest of that 
nature which is creative but blind. 

This war of gods and giants and their slaughter and trans- 
formation, is but the evolution and development of nature, its 
civilization, its alternate destruction and regeneration ; for matter 
cannot be annihilated, only changed ; the world and the universe 
were created by war; they can exist only by war; as nations 
are built up by war, the same coercive and inexorable law of the 
universe, which can never die. 



THE ANCIENT CITY 143 

The beginning of life is chemical change — it ends with the 
same phenomena. Creation and destruction, not voluntary, but 
an eternal necessity of matter. 

Apparently there is no creator but evolution, a natural un- 
folding as of plant life, a spontaneous development, as hair 
grows upon the head, and nails upon the fingers' end, by the 
natural self-begtting power of nature, emanations from the in- 
dwelling life principle pervading the universe, — and the life 
evolving power of matter; that there can be no loss of energy 
to the universe; energy disappears in one form to reappear in 
another. 

Degeneration and regeneration, but different aspects of 
the one thing. 

The old world ideas of Cosmogony, Theogony, and The- 
ology, are fast disappearing before the rationalistic school, which 
makes reason the supreme authority in all things, and rejects 
all divine revelations, miracles and supernatural absurdities, and 
acknowledges only the agency of physical and natural causes. 

And throughout nature there is nothing independent, noth- 
ing self-existing; but all things are interdependent; there never 
was any first cause — nothing is Self; nothing can move or rest 
of itself; nothing can say stop! stay! but is hurried on by irre- 
sistible force. There is no volition; even our thought and will 
are involuntary, but ruled and governed by a multitude of 
forces, and the strongest force prevails. 

Blind laws bring all good and evil alike; there is no free 
will — it is external phenomena acting upon the mind. 

All things in the universe proceed from the Infinite and 
Eternal Energy, and things we call matter are only forms of 
actions and energy, and matter itself is but the manifestation of 
energy. Matter and force have existed from all eternity and are 
inseparable. 

Our sun and moon are fire-born, yet in that molten mass 



i 4 4 THE ANCIENT CITY 

lay concealed the possibilities and potentialities of future life, 
the common endowment of all matter. 

We talk of matter and force, we talk of gravity, of attrac- 
tion and repulsion. We talk of light, heat, electricity and 
the ether, as entities; but they are an appearance only, and all 
alike illusory. And the wisest man knows not and may never 
know what they are, for their origin and destiny are beyond 
the utmost limitations of human thought. 

We have been told of an eternity as something of the future, 
but time and eternity are one, and we are living to-day in the 
midst of an eternity that had no beginning and knows no end; 
for we have always been, and shall always be, though never 
again conscious of the present self, for we are a part of the 
universe. 

Day and night are one, for what is day but night lit up 
with a torch to make darkness visible? 

Day dawned "child of the night; it turned and slew its 
mother. The mother kissed her babe and died"; and yet the 
mother died not, but was transformed to an angel of light. 

Life and death are one; all life is slowly dying; all death 
is slowly waking to life. Life and death are each to each, the 
other self. "For death so called is but old matter dressed in 
some new figure, and a varied vest. Thus all things are but 
altered, nothing dies." 

And up and down, and to and fro, and here and there, are 
seeming only, and good and bad, and right and wrong, are but 
one to the infinite, where everything is greatest and least, every- 
thing is best and worst, and we find ourselves flying through 
space with lightning speed upon a phantom ship that knows 
no end, no aim, no goal, and live in a land of illusion and lies. 



